One
My stool creaks in the slate-gray silence. I stretch, then turn once again to stare at the partially finished canvas.
A single desk lamp bathes the picture in a soft light. Shadows dance outside of the light’s glow as I attempt to imagine what my mother was creating when she placed the geometric lines on the canvas over an ash-black background. Some of them, around the edge of the canvas, are thick and strong. Others move at a diagonal and seem to fade into the empty white area in the center of the work, as if disappearing into some mysterious place that only an artist could understand. Some lines at the edge are silver. The ones in the center are a burnished gold. Small red stars in the corners of the image make me believe there would have been more color had Mom had more time.
Now it is up to me to take the next step.
Looking down at the screen in my hand, I pick up my stylus and begin to draw on the copy I made of my mother’s work, just as I have done every single day of the last eleven weeks and six days. I extend the lines—add detail. Match the color of red she used with one from my palette and begin once again to draw.
Sunlight creeps through the windows of my mother’s studio, telling me that the time to get ready for school is approaching. But I don’t move. Not yet. I stay seated on the rickety stool my mother had set up for me years ago when I begged to be allowed to watch her wield her brushes against canvas—a medium no longer used by artists but one my mother refused to completely abandon for electronic screens and the high-tech accessories that could do everything the tools on her desk did.
They can’t do everything, I remember her telling me as she frowned into my eyes. The things on the screen aren’t real. What we can touch—that’s real.
Maybe I should have asked what she meant. Or maybe she should have just told me why she was spending so many late nights in this room using tools the rest of the country had discarded to create images that are impossible to understand. If she had been clearer, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now trying to finish this painting for her.
I push a strand of hair that has escaped my ponytail out of my eyes and return to my sketch, working from the edges inward. I add a door in the empty space my mother left in the center of the work. The door is partially opened, as if waiting for someone to push it and walk through.
Over half my attempts have this door. Although until now the entryway has been closed. This time, without thinking, I painted it open. Does that mean something?
Streams of golden sunlight through Mom’s studio window chase the rest of the shadows away. I layer color and shading until finally, I cock my head to the side and study my efforts.
The image is . . . interesting. If I brought it to my art class today, Mrs. Rudoren would certainly praise my talent, something my mother rarely did. In the middle of the other geometric lines, the entryway seems almost otherworldly with the slight arch I have added at the top and the light coming from somewhere inside. The picture is the most compelling of the dozens upon dozens I have created thus far, with the red patch on the side acting almost like a warning to keep someone from walking through my door.
And still, I know it’s wrong.
I punch the erase feature on the screen. My part of the image disappears in a blink. As if it never existed. But my mother’s work remains. She’s gone, but that is what is left of her, and that’s all that’s left to me.
I rub my eyes, pick up my stylus, and touch it to the center of the screen to begin again. Wait. . . .
Damn it.
A persistent beeping sound echoes from above me. I slide off the stool and hurry through the door of my mother’s studio, into the hall, and toward the stairs. I’ve been so busy working on the puzzle of Mom’s painting that I lost track of the time.
The beeping gets louder with each step. The fact that it doesn’t stop before I reach the landing tells me exactly what I will find as I step across the threshold of my parents’ room.
My nose wrinkles.
The wailing of the alarm continues.
I step on a crumpled shirt and kick aside a pair of wadded-up gray trousers as I pad across the light blue carpet toward the nightstand. A push of a button and the room goes blissfully silent, but a look at the clock’s display tells me I have spent far more time in my mother’s studio than I’d intended. My father isn’t the only one who is going to be late at this rate.
“Dad,” I say, turning toward the bed to where my father still sleeps. His breathing is raspy. His dark, normally wavy hair is plastered against his head. The mouth that once so quickly curled into smiles is mashed against a dark blue spot on the pillow, and a large, empty go cup rests next to one of his hands.
“Dad! Get up!” I snap.
He doesn’t move.
“You slept through your alarm,” I say louder. “If you don’t get up now you’re going to be late for work.” And it wouldn’t be the first time.
I stalk across the room and tug open a window to let the fresh, almost-summer air chase the heat and stale smell out of the room.
“Dad!” I yell.
When he snorts and rolls over, I head into his bathroom and turn the shower on. Then I grab a slightly stiff washcloth, run it under ice-cold water from the sink, and stomp back to drop it on his face.
The cold washcloth does the trick. Dad yelps, sits up, and snatches the wet washcloth from his forehead with one hand while knocking the go cup off the bed with the other. The cup rolls under the bed. Dad blinks his puffy red eyes several times before shifting them to look at me.
“The shower is already running. You can’t be late,” I say as I wait for him to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and plant his feet on the floor. If I leave now there is a good chance he’ll just lie back down. It’s happened before.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he says, running a hand through his hair before pushing to his feet. I wait for him to sway, but he’s steady, and despite the swollen redness, his eyes are mostly alert. It’s an improvement over last week. Maybe I should find hope in that. But I’m not ready for hope.
“Be downstairs in fifteen minutes,” I say, heading for my room so I can get myself ready for another day. It takes me half that time to yank on the pair of navy-blue pants and pale yellow shirt that make up my school uniform. I used to hate it, but now I’m grateful for the required sameness. Figuring out what clothes to wear is one less decision I have to make.
I brush my hair, start to pull it neatly back into a ponytail as is my typical style, but one look at my eyes in the mirror has me leaving it loose. Hopefully, the fatigue won’t be as obvious that way.
The smell of coffee hits me as I hurry downstairs and walk into the cozy yellow-and-white kitchen. My father gives me what I’m sure he thinks is a cheerful smile, but it comes across as more than a little desperate. His hair is still wet from the shower. His face is shaved and he’s dressed in a blue shirt and gray jacket that I picked up from the cleaner yesterday after school. His eyes still look a little tired, but they are way clearer than they have been in the past few weeks. If I didn’t know better, I would think that he was back to the dad I used to know.
He holds out a green apple—my usual choice for breakfast. A peace offering. I shake my head and grab a banana, even though it has brown patches on the skin.
My father sighs, turns back to the counter, and pours himself a steaming mug of coffee. In an upbeat voice he says, “Only one day left of class and two days of finals before summer break. Has the City Art Program made their decision yet?”