Mourning

It was over so quickly.

A church service. Some scattered family and random friends. Delicate prayers by the gravesite. Caroline and I stood there for a little while, like sitting in the cinema after the credits had finished and the lights had come on.

At lunch afterwards. Loud whispers filling the room. So young. Her poor kids. She’s at peace now. My shoes scraped the backs of my ankles as I nodded. Your poor parents.

I got back at dinnertime. I had been away for three days but it felt like three weeks. I was surprised when I made a cup of coffee and the milk wasn’t off. Davis would bring Henry back tomorrow so I’d toss canned tomatoes and chorizo in a pan, boil some pasta and eat in front of the television.

While the water boiled, I went into the conservatory at the back of the kitchen. It was supposed to be temperature-controlled but it was freezing in winter and boiling in summer. A wool fisherman’s cardi hung on a hook near the door, knit gloves on the shelf nearby. The smell of old paint and turpentine.

Unlike the rest of the house, it was tightly organised. Labelled drawers, everything cleaned and put away after a session. Brushes were expensive to replace and I would lose momentum if I had to search for tubes of vermillion or a palette knife in the middle of painting.

A row of large canvases sat sentry on the easels. ‘Can’t you make them smaller?’ Davis asked once. ‘The only people that can buy your work are the ones with lots of wall space or statement rooms.’

‘But at these prices, the only buyers able to afford them would be people with wall space and statement rooms,’ I pointed out.

‘Yes, but if we make them smaller, we could charge less and more people could afford them.’

‘Are we charging per metre now? Besides, isn’t the price of art what we say it is? Didn’t you say that we determine the value?’

‘I hate it when you remember what I say.’

The canvases stayed big. My exhibition at Davis’s New Haven gallery is in two weeks with the possibility of a Soho showing. He’s gathered some earlier pieces but I’m meant to provide three or four new paintings. When I told him about Laura, Davis suggested we postpone. I refused. It would give me something to do and I needed the money. My part-time job teaching Art at the Wren School paid well but Henry had a class trip to DC in June and the heating bill last month had me considering a move to Savannah.

I’d prepped a canvas before I left, planning a series of giant bursts of gold through staid colours like firecrackers or marigolds at night. Now the idea seemed stale. I can’t think of anything else for the next series. My brain is numb, like an icepack on an injury, cold and tender to the touch.

The drive there and back, wearing constricting clothes, picking at catered food while chatting solemnly should have worn me out, but I couldn’t sleep. The fuzzy green numbers of the alarm clock slowly increasing. At 2:44, I got up and went to my studio. I put on the cardigan and gloves and found a clean palette.

A waste of a canvas but a peculiar energy forced me toward the brushes. I mixed colours, greys, yellows, dull whites. I fanned the brush onto the canvas, not sure what I was doing. A sensation like riding a roller coaster in the dark. I searched for a Wite-Out marker for wavy lines as the black expanse outside gave way to lush pinks and oranges, a riot breaking though that no painting could ever completely capture.

I backed away from the canvas. My first insomnia creation. At school I’d stayed up painting, sculpting, getting work ready to be exhibited or graded, but I’d never woken up to paint.

A cat. Not a twee cuddly cat, but one Stephen King might create to partner Cujo. Yellow eyes, a sinister snarl and curly white whiskers gave it the look of a silent movie villain tying a young woman to train tracks.

I knew this cat. Donald, the only pet our family ever had. When she was six, Laura begged our mother to get a kitten. Her best friend just got one and it was so cute! She made the usual kid promises to take care of it, feed it, change the litter box. Mom relented, found out where Katie got her cat and brought home an American Wirehair with a white stomach and grey and black zebra stripes.

Laura got to name the cat. She and Caroline were into Ducktales. Scrooge and Launchpad were considered, then rejected. They decided on Donald. I scoffed. It was weird to name a cat after a duck.

It was Laura’s cat but, like cats in every time and place, he courted the family members who liked him least, my father and me. He would settle in my room when I wasn’t there and mew outside my door at night until I let him in to sleep at the foot of my bed. He would allow Laura to cuddle or pet him when I wasn’t around but ran toward me when I returned. Laura lost interest, reinventing him as ‘Ali’s cat.’ And to Laura, anything associated with me was tainted unless she wanted it. Toys, clothes, boyfriends. Mom took charge of him and when he died of some common cat heart disease, she didn’t replace him.

I hadn’t thought of Donald in years, even in discussions with Henry about a potential pet. We considered a dog, but I was put off by the care required. I was just about managing with Henry. I wasn’t a neglectful mother. Henry was well-fed and clothed. I remembered his likes and dislikes. I did once run to pick him up wearing the paint-splattered cardigan, hair snarled in a topknot. The school run mums outside the Wren looked at me like a mad bomber had entered an airport terminal. Henry kept his head down and mumbled ‘Mom, why are you wearing that outside?’ But I wasn’t late.

I turned the canvas around so Donald’s malevolent stare wouldn’t frighten Henry or put me off my breakfast. I don’t have classes on Mondays but I drive in to plan lessons for the week, then take Henry home. I applied for the job for the staff discount on tuition and was surprised to find that I enjoyed it. I have two art history classes and two senior elective art studio sessions. Barely any students apply for art schools. University is the goal, particularly one nearby, whose name is never directly mentioned, referred to in whispers as ‘New Haven’, like avoiding uttering Macbeth aloud in a theatre.

With the focus only the truly tired have, I dressed, drove in and prepared slides for the week’s lectures. Davis dropped Henry off at school and I waited at the usual time and place to take him home. He didn’t come with me because we weren’t sure if fifteen was old enough for a funeral and he barely knew Laura. Fifteen was absolutely too young to have to manufacture grief.

Before dinner, I called Mom and Dad, then called Caroline to compare notes. Mom was sad. Dad was too, but also angry. Mom wondered if there was any more they should have done to help her. Dad blamed Jeff, the boyfriend she met in rehab, her companion on her last binge.

‘Wasn’t he her sponsor?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Who will guard the guards, I guess.’

I cooked chili and we talked about Henry’s day. He made the varsity baseball team and it looked like he’d start this season. Neither Davis nor I are athletic. We met at the Rhode Island School of Design, not known for intercollegiate sports. But I love that Davis’s grace and my stubbornness have created an infielder.

After last night, I expected to crash right away. Still can’t sleep. I’d make some warm milk or chamomile tea. I have whiskey and red wine, indulged in sparingly. For every opium-inspired Kubla Khan there were thousands more Coleridges holding up barstools. I feared sleeping pills or anti-anxiety meds because of Laura. I wouldn’t paint again. I’d watch something on Prime until I got tired.

At five am, I’m facing a painting of a massive, shattered Magic 8 Ball. I had one in my bedroom, hidden behind a set of Time-Life art books my grandparents gave me. I would ask it random questions: Should I do my science homework now? Does Justin Donnelly like me? Does Justin Donnelly like Stacey Betts? Laura had found it and was shaking it on the sofa, repeating its advice.

‘That’s mine.’

‘No, it’s not. I bought this with my own money.’ What money? She was seven.

‘No, you didn’t. You took it from my room. Give it back.’

Mom caught me trying to wrestle the ball back from Laura, who’d gripped it under her arm. ‘Girls! Stop that right now!’

Neither one of us would surrender. ‘It’s mine!’ Laura squealed.

A strategic tickle gave me the ball. ‘Ali, Laura says it’s hers. Give it back to her.’

Scorching anger. Flames on the side of my face. Mom knew it was mine. She always took Laura’s side. After seeing the victory smirk on her face, I wrenched my arm back and slammed the ball on the floor, where it shattered in two, releasing blue fluid that stained the side of the living room rug. The small white pyramid with the responses landed at my feet. I grabbed it and slammed my bedroom door possessed by the infinite fury an eleven-year-old could call upon.

My Magic 8 Ball was where it always was, behind the art books. I buried it under some sweaters, my fury replaced by fear. Mom bought Laura a new one and I was punished. An apology and no TV for a week. I never acknowledged my mistake.

I’d forgotten I’d done that. I could offer the excuse that I was young, my mother always took Laura’s side without listening to my grievances. You’re the oldest. You should set an example for your sisters. If the story ever came up, I’d brush it away. How many objects, valuable and worthless, had I wanted to smash? Most stayed intact. Now the shame you suffer when your younger self travels ahead in time to remind your older self who you were.

I had four lessons on Tuesday, one a double where the Seniors were working on a still life. Playing with line and colour rather than exact representation. It was spring but no one had told the weather and the heat was still on at school.

Tonight I would surely sleep. I’m hollowed-out like a Halloween pumpkin. And again, I’m fizzing at 3 am, unable to settle.

This time I’ve painted a diary, the old-fashioned kind with a lock at its side, opened with a tiny silver key. The lock had been ripped off, its insides gutted, lined paper with childish handwriting scattered on a blue flowered bedspread. The writing on some of the pages blurred, others legible. My name. Caroline’s name. Miss Muller, a teacher at our grammar school. Charlie Fitzpa is the largest and clearest, in the centre of the painting.

Charlie Fitzpatrick. A boy Laura had a crush on. His family owned the pub on First Avenue. A jolly redheaded boy who bounced when he walked.

I didn’t tear the lock off, though the fastenings weren’t strong. I unscrewed it with Dad’s tool for fixing his glasses. I didn’t rip the pages out and, at first, I searched for what she’d written about me. What I found wasn’t surprising. I was annoying, full of myself. I won the art prizes but my drawings weren’t that great.

The clasp tightened back with no problem. But I referenced things she had written in conversations, the bit about my drawings not being that great, how Charlie Fitzpatrick was funny and they could go out together when they were older. Laura was incensed but puzzled. The lock was intact, the key hidden, so how could I have read it?

When I checked in with Caroline, I asked if she knew what happened to Charlie Fitzpatrick.

‘From St Mary’s? I’m not sure. His sister still lives in the neighbourhood. Why?’

I didn’t tell her about the paintings, now turned toward the wall in my studio.

When we arrived home on Wednesday night, Davis’s BMW was parked in front of our house. He was in the living room, reading a copy of The New Yorker. He stood up at the sound of the door and gave Henry a hug. ‘Now, don’t worry, I can’t stay for dinner. I drove up to check on the gallery and I wanted to see how you were.’ He opened another Robillard gallery here when Henry was born and we experimented with domesticity. It has benefitted from Yale parents and professors and wealthy wives trapped in New Haven during football weekends.

‘You wanted to make sure I was working.’

‘Well,’ he smiled. ‘That too. I saw the paintings. I hope you don’t mind me having a look.’

‘Oh.’ I blushed like he’d discovered a dirty secret, a stash of porn under my bed. ‘I don’t know, they’re just… I don’t know what they are.’

‘They have a lot of energy, a domestic disturbance vibe. A little dark. But intriguing.’

‘Maybe I should paint some lovely sunsets or seascapes. A lighthouse.’

‘Stick with it. We can make them work.’

Davis went to RISD with the idea of being some kind of artist. But after a year, he realised he didn’t have the spark, but he was brilliant at spotting talent and encouraging others to create. He was the offspring of a Greek muse and a 1950s travelling salesman.

Awake again at three am. I tiptoed down the stairs and made a cup of coffee. The tang of vinegar hinted the milk was off. I’d walk to the Quick Mart before Henry woke up. One canvas left. I prepped it and took out every tube of yellow I had. Cadmium with hints of brown, creamy peaches made warmer by Naples yellow. More Naples yellow mixed with viridian to make a muddier green.

I moved in more of a frenzy this time. My arms ached, like swimming against an undertow. A woman, from head to torso, brightly coloured in the Matisse mode I loved. At first, it put me in mind of an art assignment to paint the opposite of the Mona Lisa. She displayed the vibrant chaos of a Disney villain, a sharp featured Maleficent or Cruella. Blonde unkempt hair surrounding a face with green eyes and a full mouth, an arrogant, giddy stare, suggesting her evil scheme is going according to plan.

It was me. The middle stages of Dorian Gray’s picture, not yet worthy of a knife through the canvas, but locked in the attic, safe from spectators. I turned it to the window so violently it fell from the easel. I picked it up like it was a bouquet of nettles. What did Poynton say in class all those years ago? A portrait doesn’t have to be an exact likeness, but it must nail something of the soul.

I walked to the Quick Mart, a long wool coat over my pyjamas, tears flowing down my face.

I made it through my workday, doing just enough to pass for competent. Henry was buzzing about something in the car on the drive home. I could only focus on the road.

The doorbell rang as I put my bag down. Davis was in the doorway. He gave me the same stare Aunt Mary had for me on Saturday.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s Thursday. The Met’s season opener. We talked about it yesterday, remember?’ Henry burst down the stairs wearing a Mets hoodie. Davis gave him a hug and told him to wait in the car.

‘Am I going too?’

‘Oh, do you want to come? Honestly, sweetheart, you look like you could use a night in.’ He looked past me to the conservatory. Discarded tubes of paint, brushes still in water, one lying on a full palette.

‘Oh, dear. We can skip the game,’ he said. ‘I’ll make some dinner.’

‘No, Henry really wants to go. He was talking about it the whole way home.’

‘And yet you were surprised to see me?’

‘I’m-'

‘Sweetheart, sit down. I’m going to order you some lo mein. You need to eat something, take a warm bath and get some sleep. First, clean up the studio. You’ll feel better afterward.’

I did as I was told and went to bed. I slept but it was broken. My voice repeated in my head, maybe out loud too. That’s what you’ve always thought of me. You complained that I got to do everything first, drive, go to Europe. You never liked me. You never wanted to be my friend. And I’m supposed to feel remorse now.

I heard them come in, soft voices on the landing. Davis knocked on my door.

I sat up and he hugged me, He always smelled so good, soap on warm skin and forest. I’m conscious that I’m clammy and stale, my perfume from this morning long faded.

‘The new pictures look fantastic. The show’s going to be great,’ he whispered. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’

‘Not the portrait. Please?’

‘Are you sure? It’s very powerful.’ I shake my head.

‘Am I a terrible person?’

‘Of course not. It’s a version of you. But it’s not you. Not all of who you are. Not the you we know.’

My alarm woke me at 6 the next morning.