by Rachel Kane
I don’t think it had ever occurred to me before. Of course we had paintings in the house. There was the scary one of Grandfather Harrison, the one we used to tell stories about, that his eyes would follow you around the room, watching everything you did, and if you did anything wrong, his old gray hand might reach out from the canvas…
But I never thought about someone painting them before.
I couldn’t explain what I meant to the teacher, I couldn’t get across the thoughts that were blossoming in my mind, but this changed me.
This is what started me on my path.
And now that path is blocked, trees and vines and brambles and thorns cover it, so you have to go some other way. The path to Missouri and money and a satisfied family.
I found myself in front of a dark painting, one almost frightening to behold. A Tinoretto, if I wasn’t mistaken. I checked the tag, and yes. Il Ritrovamento del corpo di San Marco. The Discovery of the Body of St. Mark. On loan from an Italian museum.
A strange, morbid picture, full of rich shadows and grand, alien emotions.
A tomb being raided by those looking for the body of the saint. When, wearing a golden halo, St. Mark himself appears, gesturing at a pale body on the rug as if to say, Here I am. You found me. The men in the tomb falling on their knees, in worship, in fear.
Look: The arched ceiling stretches back, down and to the left, pulling the eye down towards the saint.
Look: The lights in the room, a torch in the far distance, an unseen torch up near the roof, and the saint himself. It’s trickery, real light doesn’t work like this, real light doesn’t turn everything into a stage, focusing the eye on exactly what you want someone to see.
Look: The surprised expression of the observer on the right, surprised yet satisfied, as though this is just what they’ve all come to see. The hand, strangely large, larger than it should be, as though in his shock, he is reaching out to you to steady himself.
This is what I wanted to do with my life. This is all I had ever wanted to do with my life, to learn to paint like this, to learn to create a scene that drags the vision along, that commands you where to look, to have that power over life that I have never had.
I was, instead, letting life drag me along.
Mother, forcing me away, at a time I needed to be near her.
Val, forcing me away, into a life neither of us truly wanted.
What did we expect? Did we think at some future day, we would get to meet The Family Legacy personified? Would it appear before us, like St. Mark here in the picture, and tell us, Good job, boys, you’ve protected me for long enough. Now you can rest.
There was no reward for giving up your life for the company.
Or, rather, there were plenty of rewards, comfort, security… You just had to give up everything that meant anything to you.
You know, you can paint when you’re out there. I’m sure they have art stores in Missouri. It’s a place where people live, where cities grow.
That wasn’t the point. Yes, of course I could paint.
But I wouldn’t. Because I was busy selling my soul to protect the family fortune, and you can’t paint without a soul.
Look at these shadows. Look at the smoke, curling up from the warmth of these people in the painting. The yellowed cobwebs hanging from the arches.
To paint fear, to paint adoration, you have to have a soul. You have to have a heart that can peer into human emotion, to know what it looks like.
This job was turning me into Val.
Or maybe even Val would’ve been different, if he hadn’t been forced to take over the company when he was so young. The successful prodigy, the kid genius. What might Val have done, if he hadn’t learned to hide behind his spreadsheets and numbers? What could he have accomplished with his life?
Surely more than this.
How did we get here? How did we get to the place where my own mother demanded I abandon her?
To a place where it made sense that I abandoned the man I loved…for a second time?
What was this life, that always asked so much of me?
I thought of the pain in Micah’s voice. I hadn’t even faced him. I’d broken up with him over the phone.
Was that better or worse than last time, when I hadn’t broken up with him at all, just left him there, lying in the sun, next to the lake, as though he might be preserved like that forever, young and perfect and beautiful?
As though I could come back to him at any time, but never did?
“There’s something wrong with my life,” I said to the painting, my voice soft and lost in this cold gallery.
All these painters were dead now. They were dust in the ground. Their subjects, their models, all gone. Every dream they’d ever had, every peal of laughter and every painful tear, gone. All that remained of them were these pictures, these attempts to capture a moment, a story, a feeling.
Would I go to my grave regretting everything? This painting was about four hundred and fifty years old. What of me would survive that long? Harrison Holdings wouldn’t be around then. The house on the lake would be ashes and dust. I’d be long, long gone, and what would it matter that I’d made a little more money, kept the machine going, greased the gears of commerce?
Who cared?
My whole life, I’ve been taught the value of sacrifice. Give up Micah, give up Paris, give up art school and painting and a normal life. Give up your memories of Dad, give up Mother and her illness, give up everything for this idea that doesn’t even really exist, this legacy, this company that isn’t even a real company, it’s just a shell that holds other companies. It’s not real. How could you paint it? If you put a brush to canvas, what would it even look like?
The only thing that is real is people. And I was losing people right and left.
Micah understood that. He’d been asked to give up his dream, too. Working cases he didn’t care about, deep into the night.
This world will demand everything of you, and never let you get back to yourself, your true self, the self that lay out on a blanket on a gorgeous summer day, the self that thought of the future as an endless series of summer days, full of potential and hope, the man you loved by your side.
Why was I giving everything up?
Why was I putting myself—why was I putting Micah—through all this pain, for something neither of us had ever dreamed of, a life neither of us wanted?
Was it because I was afraid?
Was I scared of what it meant, to follow your dream?
Scared of the rift it would cause between me and Val, me and Mother, me and my entire family?
Scared that this comfort I’d gotten so used to, would be ripped away?
But when Micah was by my side, I felt like I could do anything. He was different than anyone else I’d ever known. He could give me strength, and I could return it, our dreams somehow feeding on each other and getting stronger and stronger until they broke through into reality.
Was I really prepared to give him up so easily?
Life doesn’t offer you a lot of second chances. It keeps pushing you forward, further and further away from where you began. You don’t get a lot of options there. You don’t often get the chance to go back and make it right.
So when you’re offered that chance, you have to make the most of it, you have to let people know what they mean to you. Like St. Mark there in the painting, look, look, here I am. You found the right one.
Val would practically disown me.
I would be giving up so much.
So much of what I’d never wanted in the first place, so much of what I’d never asked for.
My whole life, I’ve only wanted two or three things at all. I wasn’t a greedy person.
I wanted my childhood home.
I wanted to paint.
And I wanted my goddamn boyfriend back.
30
Micah
“We’ll probably have to rent a storage building for a while,” I said, looking at my mom’s box
es. There weren’t many…but more than would fit in my apartment.
“You don’t have to do it,” she said. “I can live anywhere. Under a bridge, in a car—”
“Oh come on,” I said, laughing. “I’m not letting my mother live under a bridge. Who’s going to protect you from the billy-goats gruff?”
“I hate to put you to all this trouble.”
I hefted one of the boxes into the back of the rented truck. “It’s not any trouble. But look…I need you to know something.”
“Oh dear.”
“No, it’s nothing bad, not too bad, anyway. But I’m a little broke at the moment.”
“You! A lawyer!”
“I know, I know. But I’m about to have to fire one of my clients. My main client, at this point. It’s going to take me a while to build back up my caseload. Things might be tight for a while.”
I hadn’t told Braddock yet. Or Bernard, for that matter. All Bernard knew was that I was taking a few days off to help my mom…and recover from my breakup. He promised to keep on the phones, trying to convince our clients to stay with us, not to run off.
This decision was going to affect him too. We were both going to be seriously broke again for a while, like when we first started out.
No time to think about that right now. I had a job to do.
“Careful with that one, it’s my plates,” she said. “You stop worrying about money.”
“I’m not worried,” I lied.
“Tsk. Believe me, I know that look. You get these little lines between your eyes. You always have. I don’t need much. I don’t expect a palace. I’m just happy you’re here to help me, Micah. That’s all I really need, to know there’s somebody on my side.”
Do not cry in front of Mom.
Do not cry in front of Mom.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m just glad I’m able to offer some help. How is Consuela getting along?”
“Oh, she’s sad to leave, but like she says, there’s always a job for a good cook. Her cousin works for one of the restaurants up in Corinth, he’s asking around. She’ll find something. And we can see her all the time when she’s up there.”
“Good,” I said, “because my kitchen is tiny. I’ll have to beg her to make us some food.”
Mom swatted my arm. “You let that poor woman settle in before you go asking for things.”
We finished loading up the truck; there really wasn’t much. I threw a tarp over the load, just in case it started raining; this weather was temperamental. The rope felt good in my hands, as I tied down the tarp. It felt physical, felt real, unlike a lot of my life lately.
I knew I was making the right choice.
At least, I hoped I was.
I glanced over, through the trees, and saw the outlines of the big house.
“You know, I think I’m going to walk to the lake, one last time,” I said.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I just…I’d like to be able to remember it.”
She patted my shoulder, and gathered a few last things from the house.
For once, I was dressed appropriately, in boots instead of dress shoes. I was able to walk out a little further, a little closer to the water, listening to my soles squelch in the mud.
The water sparkled in the sunlight. One last, unseasonable burst of summer had brought everything back to life. The warmth had a power all its own, pulling you in, making you want nothing more than to sit here, watching the water.
I turned my head. Behind me was the big house.
What a strange feeling, the idea of never seeing it again. You spend your whole childhood somewhere, and it never occurs to you that it isn’t yours, that all that belongs to you are the memories.
So many good memories…and one painful, painful one.
I walked up the slope to the patio, hoping no one was looking outside. I didn’t want to be seen, I just wanted to look.
Here was the patio where we’d played tag as little kids (Don’t run! Consuela would yell), and where later as teens we’d start great fires in the pit, hanging out, looking speculatively at one another as our eyes reflected the flickering orange flames.
Through that door was the drawing room, where I was never allowed to sit, as though the furniture were magical, as though it might be able to tell a poor boy from a rich boy, and would nudge me off those richly embroidered cushions.
But those back hallways were mine, and the back staircase, leading up to the old servant’s quarters. That had been my world. Theo and I playing hide-and-seek, or tormenting Val, or sneaking into the kitchen to steal whatever Consuela had made for dessert.
This place had been my life, and now it was gone.
It was okay.
That’s what I realized, peeking in the windows: I was okay.
I hurt, yes. God, it hurt so bad. But I knew I’d survive. Everyone did, didn’t they? All the adults you’ve ever met have said goodbye to their childhood. I was just doing it one more time, a little late.
Saying goodbye, rather than just having it snatched away from me.
I was headed back down the path to the caretaker’s cottage when I heard the roar of an approaching engine, the crunch of tires against gravel, the squeal of brakes.
For a moment I had the absurd thought that an ambulance had rushed up to the house. An emergency.
It was plausible. Mrs. Harrison was ill, Theo had said.
I had no place here, and no one needed my help, and yet I was drawn forward. I came around to the front of the house.
It wasn’t an ambulance. Just a car, dust still clouding the air where it had slammed to a stop, tires digging ruts into the ground where all the gravel had flown away.
Theo got out of the car and began to race forward, a look of determination and anger on his face.
Then he spotted me.
He looked from me, to the door of the house, then back.
His face lit up.
“Unexpected,” he said, “but it works out much better this way.”
“Um…hi?” I said. Suddenly feeling scared and tentative, as though my ex might be angry to find me here. As though he might kick me out.
“Listen,” he said, “I have a crazy plan, and it’s stupid and wild and you should never do it in a million years, but I’m going to ask you anyway.”
I took a step back from him. “Are you--”
“If you say drunk, I’m going to scream. I’ve never been more sober in my life. Listen, Micah, I’ve been thinking—”
“You left me,” I said. All the anger, all the rage of being abandoned, was now flowing through my veins. “You broke up with me on the phone.”
“I know! But look, ignore all that, okay? Erase it from your mind. I have an idea.”
“I don’t care about your ideas!” I found myself shouting. “How could you do it to me again? How could I have been so stupid as to let it happen again? What the fuck is wrong with me…what’s wrong with you? Walking into my life like this, making me think we had a chance, and then the second you have to make a choice between me and your fucking company, who wins, who gets chosen?”
He held up his hands. “Guilty as charged. Micah, I know. Okay? I know. I’m done.”
“No, I’m done.”
“Okay, yes, dramatic, fine, but you’re not listening. I’m done letting my family make the decisions. I don’t want to lose you! Do you understand? Do you know how lonely I’ve been without you? Do you know how gray and meaningless everything is, when you’re not around? I keep giving it all up, I keep sacrificing and sacrificing, and it’s never enough, and I’m done. I want someone in my life who gives back. Someone who understands me. And…well, you’re it. You’re the only one.”
I stood there dumbfounded, a deer in the headlights, a cartoon character running off the edge of a cliff, my whole fate hanging in front of me, and a big stupid look on my face like I didn’t understand a thing.
“I’m… You came here to t
ell me that?”
“No! I came here to tell Mother. I quit my job, Micah. I told Val I wouldn’t do it. No moving. No more schmoozing with guys I can’t stand. No more drowning myself with alcohol to try to make the pain go away. I’m cutting it off at the source. He was so mad, you’ve never seen Val that mad, not even that time we let the hornet go in his room!”
“You left your job?”
“Micah, I sense you’re not following me. Do you need to sit down?”
“I just… I mean, I kind of did the same. Or I’m planning to. But you? You’re not going to work for the company anymore? What will you do?”
“I’m going to paint,” he said, his face brightening until it shone like the sun itself. “Fuck it, fuck money, fuck the family legacy. I want a legacy of my own. I want to paint beautiful things, things that will last forever, so some bored schoolkid five hundred years from now sees it in a museum and thinks I want to do that too. Won’t it be great? I might even go to art school. At my age! Micah, cancel the break up! Let’s get back together!”
It really was too much to take in all at once.
I found myself stepping back from him. “I came to say goodbye. To the house, to the lake. To get on with my life.”
“So don’t say goodbye.”
“But Theo… How can I trust you? How can I put my heart in your hands? You might walk in that house, and walk back out with new marching orders from your mom. And your family’s marching orders always involve you breaking up with me.”
“Not this time. I’m done being pushed around by them, Micah. I’m done. I want my own life.”
“A life with me?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”
“And you quit your job? You’re taking a vow of poverty?”
He scrunched his nose. “I mean, it’s not poverty. I still own a chunk of the business, even if I’m not working. I’m richer than I need to be.”
Could I believe him this time? Could I? What could I ask him, that would make it easier to believe? What could I demand of him, as a token of faith?
Because I wanted to believe him really, really badly. It’s all I wanted. It would be like wiping away all the pain of the years since that last summer together.
