The Masterpiece

Grace arrives at Aunt Elizabeth’s house, and she is struck by her aunt’s kindness in playing with Samuel while she unloads her things. Aunt Elizabeth expresses sadness that Grace’s relationship with Roman did not pan out; she had liked him when they met and could tell that he cared for Grace, unlike Grace’s ex-husband Patrick. During their stay, Grace gets into a long conversation with Aunt Elizabeth about their family past, focusing on the trauma of Grace’s parents’ death and the earlier patterns of abuse that Elizabeth’s father had set in motion. Together, they mourn their missed opportunities for loving one another amid their grief, and Aunt Elizabeth expresses regret for the emotionally closed-off way that she had treated Grace while raising her. She says, “I have many regrets, Grace, but the biggest of all is not raising you with the love you so desperately needed” (400).

Roman goes to Brian’s house to meet him. The conversation turns to Roman’s past, and he talks about his life on the streets as Bobby Ray Dean and his graffiti work. He also talks about the tragic end of an aspiring graffiti artist named White Boy, who fell to his death, and whose passing still haunts Roman’s nightmares. As Roman processes his childhood traumas and works his way to healing, Brian offers him a new opportunity to redeem his past: a chance to use his graffiti artwork in a commissioned mural on the side of the church. While Roman initially resists the idea—seeing graffiti as part of the past he’s left behind—Brian assures him that it will all be done out in the open and for the glory of God.

As Grace and Aunt Elizabeth talk, the circumstances of Samuel’s birth come up, and Grace reveals that Samuel’s conception was the result of a one-night stand with a stranger after her divorce from Patrick. Shanice had encouraged her to go dancing at a club, and Grace had ended up with a man whom she scarcely even looked at and, in the fog of the experience, didn’t even remember.

Aunt Elizabeth encourages Grace to consider Merced, a nearby university town, as a possible new permanent spot for her and Samuel. On her way to Merced, Grace visits a church that was recommended to her and ends up going back again for a midweek Bible study. One of the women at the Bible study invites Grace to look at a house that is available for rent, and the arrangements all seem to fall providentially into place. Grace is happy, telling Samuel that God is good to them.

Roman decides to sell his Topanga Canyon mansion to move closer to the church. He takes an apartment in the same complex where Brian lives, and he devotes his time to working on the graffiti mural on the church wall. It emerges as a poignant depiction of his newfound faith. The mural draws public attention as the media gets wind of Roman Velasco doing a graffiti piece, and—even more astonishingly—one entirely devoted to religious themes.

In Merced, life is going well for Grace and Samuel. Grace works to expand her online business. Aunt Elizabeth visits regularly, showing a kind and generous streak that continually surprises Grace. After a few months, however, Grace gets a phone call from Shanice, who tells her about some of the changes in Roman’s life. Grace protests that she has tried hard to forget about Roman and move on, but it is clear to Shanice that the weight of her near-romance with Roman is still on her mind. Shanice encourages Grace to look up the media’s YouTube coverage of Roman’s graffiti mural, and when she does so, she immediately notices the centrality of Jesus in Roman’s new work.

Tuck Martin, a reporter, interviews Roman about the mural, with Brian alongside. Roman is not keen on media attention, but he answers Tuck’s questions, including a bare-bones account of his near-death experience. Brian, always comfortable in his pastoral role, smooths over some of Roman’s rough patches in the interaction and even gets Tuck talking about his own troubled relationship with faith. Later, back in the apartment complex, Roman shows Brian a painting he has been working on—a portrait that evokes the biblical Mary, pregnant with Christ, which Brian notes looks a little like Grace. Roman takes this as an indication that God might be responding to a plea Roman has put forth—namely, that if three different people mention Grace unprompted, it is a sign that God is leading him back to her. Brian’s mention is the first.

In the middle of the night, Roman gets a phone call from Shanice, asking for his help in retrieving a friend from potential trouble at a dance club. With Brian unable to accompany her because of emergency pastoral duties elsewhere, Roman goes along. The club they go to—After Dark—has a connection to all of their pasts, and as they find Shanice’s friend and retrieve her, the stories come up: It is the club that Roman once frequented, looking to find one-night stands, and it is also the scene of one of Shanice’s biggest regrets in her friendship with Grace. Shanice recounts how, after Grace’s divorce, she invited Grace to come out dancing at the club with her as a way to loosen up. Grace—still with the long, bleached-blond hair that her ex-husband Patrick had preferred—lost herself in the crowd and ended up going home with a stranger. That was the one-night stand that resulted in Samuel being born. This news startles Roman, as he had always assumed that Samuel had been Patrick’s baby with Grace. Shanice feels she may have overstepped by telling Grace’s story, but it marks the second instance of someone bringing her up to Roman unprompted, in answer to his prayer.

Grace begins taking classes to finish her college degree alongside the online consulting and tutoring business she has launched. She is stretched for time but enjoying the blessings of her life in Merced. Aunt Elizabeth continues to visit regularly, and now and then she mentions Roman, as if holding out hope that the two of them might reconnect. Roman, for his part, has planned a trip back up to San Francisco. He wants to walk the streets of his youth and perceive it all from the fresh perspective of his faith. While he walks around the Tenderloin district, he feels God’s gentle healing in place of the shame he expected, and he feels the softening of his heart toward the memory of his mother. He also recalls the experience of his teacher and the police coming to hand him over to social services, and he realizes for the first time that they had actually rescued him from a much worse fate. He finds and thanks his old teacher, and then he goes and secures his mother’s ashes from the coroner’s office. Taking them up to Masterson Ranch, he sprinkles the ashes over the hills, while expressing his forgiveness. Just as he is about to leave the ranch, Jasper asks him about Grace—the third instance Roman has been waiting for. He finds out that Jasper has been in contact with Grace, and from their conversation, he is able to find her business website and send a brief message via the contact form.

Grace sees Roman’s message, requesting a face-to-face meeting if she’s willing. After a brief interaction via messages, she sends her address and invites him to come over the next afternoon. As the time approaches, both Grace and Roman are nervous, as neither has been able to get the other out of their mind. The moment of their meeting confirms their longing: As soon as he sees Grace, Roman “could hardly breathe. If he’d ever had any doubt about being in love with this woman, it was gone now” (468).

Roman begins by apologizing, declaring his love for her, and assuring her that he doesn’t want a meaningless love that just uses the other person for sexual favors. He has come to ask her to marry him. Grace mentions the guilt of her past, which is an oblique reference to the After Dark club and the one-night stand. Roman addresses it directly, telling her that he’s heard the whole story from Shanice. There is one new detail, however, that he brings to light: Carefully revealing the evidence of his past and the faint memories they both have of an ill-remembered one-night stand, Roman makes the case that he might have been the man that Grace was with that night, and thus, he might be Samuel’s father.

Regardless of that possibility, Roman pledges that he loves Grace not out of a sense of obligation or out of lust, but because his love for her has become even greater as he has come to understand the depth of God’s love. The conversation reveals that Grace’s affections run just as deep as Roman’s, and they pledge to love one another in a relationship that is grounded on Christ and offers a nurturing family for Samuel. Roman offers to stick around Merced in a place of his own until they get married and decide where they will live.

Roman and Grace are at a gallery show for Roman’s paintings, which now burst with themes of faith. One painting, World Changers, depicts Jesus’s disciples as modern-day men and is being hailed as a masterpiece. Roman is still active in art, working on both painting and commissioned street murals, but he is now based out of Merced. He and Grace are married and have bought a house on the outskirts of town. They’ve also had another baby named Hannah. Brian and Shanice are also married. They responded to a pastoral search in their friends’ Merced church, and now they live and work there too. Marveling at how God’s work has brought such blessing into their lives, Grace sums up the feeling with an allusion to painting, saying, “We are all God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ” (484).