Malta Intervention

We went to see Rocco the next day, and although he seemed sad and distracted, as well as we knew Rocco we could also see the underlying, unspoken relief. We found him sitting on the terrace, clothed and in front of an easel.

After we'd said our good mornings, Sandy, the cleverer and more sensitive conversationalist of the two of us, said, "What are those paints in your paint kit, Rocco?"

"Acrylics," Rocco said simply, offering no further explanation.

Not needing any, Sandy merely said, "Good. You know the one you did more than a month ago sold quickly at the gallery."

"Indeed?" Rocco said. He returned to dabbing his fast-drying paint on the canvas. But he was smiling.

"We found a telephone number for Sebastien in Nice," Sandy then said. "Hank and I miss him and are thinking of inviting him over for a weekend for a café crawl. Would you mind terribly if we did that? Of course, we won't if you mind."

Silence for a few seconds, and then Rocco said, "No, no, I wouldn't mind that at all." He was still stroking his painting on the canvas and looking squarely at what he was creating there. But he also was still smiling.