by Chris Cander
Alta tilted her head again, as if to regard him from another perspective. Then she stood up and dusted off the seat of her wool trousers.
“I need to go. My husband’s waiting.”
“Wait,” he said. But she had started already toward the tree stump. He stood up and followed, watched her empty the water from the jar, shake out her brush, and place it back into the metal box. Watched as she touched the surface of her painting lightly, testing. Watched as, satisfied, she rolled it into a loose tube. Then she picked up her scarf and, despite the chill that had come down the mountain and settled around them, tucked it along with the paint box under her arm.
“Come see me,” he said when she turned back toward him.
“What about your wife? You’re still married, I suppose?”
“Barely.”
“Myrthen is her name, I recall.”
“She won’t know,” he said. “Wouldn’t care anyways.”
“I’m married,” she said. “I have a son. He’s almost thirteen.”
“I’m sure we’ll get along famously.” A spray of fine lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes when he smiled. “How about you just come and paint? I’ll even get another chair.”
She bit her lip again. “I wish I could,” she said.
“Someday,” he countered.
She smiled again, faintly. Then she turned and began the short hike down the mountain, back to her husband and son.
December 1, 1944
When Myrthen came home from the convent in Ohio, she was resolute. She decided she would move back to her childhood home, which she’d kept even after liquidating the rest of her inheritance to buy the organ for St. Michael’s, as soon as the essential repairs could be done. She didn’t wait a moment longer than necessary to inform her husband of her plans.
The day John arrived home from Europe with a faint limp and a drawn face, she met him at the door and said, “In the eyes of the Church, we can’t divorce, but we can separate. You may consider yourself free to do as you please. Not that you needed my permission before. I plan to have this marriage annulled.” And she stood with one eyebrow arched, allowing time for the information to settle, before opening the door to allow him in.
During the following months, John went back underground and Myrthen resumed her dirge-filled days at the church. They shared a bed, but never their bodies nor any words that weren’t fundamentally necessary. Then the Friday came when her parents’ house was ready and she packed the bags she’d come with fourteen years before. When he returned home from his shift that ended at three o’clock, she told him, “I’m leaving.”
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“Nothing but my freedom.”
“I won’t stand in your way,” he said, after she’d already gone down the steps. But then he called to her. “Myrthen,” he said.
She stopped and sighed, then turned around.
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
She looked at him, his graying hair, his sad and tender face. “No need to apologize,” she said, straightening her back. “It was all part of God’s plan.”
Myrthen put down her bags and breathed in the new scents of sawed wood and paint. The workmen had bolstered the sagging porch, installed an indoor toilet and bath, replaced the fragile roof, and repaired the waterlogged walls of the house that anybody else would have considered past saving. She didn’t bother with the paint. Improving the façade was not the point; in God’s eyes, everything was beautiful. She merely required function.
Myrthen walked around the house. It was much smaller than she’d remembered, but she liked it all the more for its modesty. Here was the sitting room and the couch where she’d been led into temptation. She would get rid of it immediately. Here was the room that had belonged to her parents, which still contained their iron bed. The mattress had been thrown out after her mother’s body had been discovered, nearly a week after her passing. She looked around and then closed the door. Her mother had had no need for her, not after Ruth died. Now Myrthen had no need for her mother, or any of her things.
Here was the room she’d shared with Ruth, the small bed and chair. Even after her twin had died, Myrthen made a point of taking up no more than half of that small bed that had been theirs. She walked over and touched the faded drawing behind the door, which she had explicitly told the workmen to leave alone. Ruth had drawn — directly on the wall — two stick figures holding hands. Myrthen remembered the day she’d done it: their mother had scolded Myrthen for fidgeting at Mass, and sent her to their room without lunch. Then Ruth had refused to eat and so she had been sent off, too. She closed the door with only a little bit of a slam, and went to Myrthen and gave her hand a squeeze. Then she drew the two of them there on the wall, and whispered, “Don’t tell Mama.” They giggled into their palms until Rachel came in to shush them.
Now, as though nothing had changed, the stick sisters stood side by side, holding hands. “I miss you, Ruthie,” Myrthen whispered.
Here was the kitchen, the wood stove and sink, the table and chairs her father had made. She stepped up to the window and looked out at the unruly thatch where long ago, Rachel had tended her tidy rows of roots and greens, rosebushes and zinnias. Now the garden was overgrown and full of wild things, as though the woods behind the old shack were sneaking up to reclaim it. The workmen had offered to clear it out for her, but she declined. The only thing she allowed them to cut down was the transplanted myrtle tree that had been growing there for thirty-five years. She told them to chop it into kindling.
And here was the new indoor bathroom. It was very small, but with room enough for a toilet and a sink and a bathtub. It was directly off the kitchen, on a built-up floor where the door to the cellar steps had once been. The workmen had tried to talk her out of it, suggesting she convert one of the small bedrooms instead of going to all the trouble of filling up and sealing off the cellar. Wouldn’t she need access to it? Where would she store her preserves?
There would be no preserves, she told them. There was nothing that needed storing except her memories of Ruth. Those, if possible, she would prefer to keep out of the cellar.
That very afternoon, before the house was plunged into darkness, Myrthen sat down at the old kitchen table where she had spent the first nineteen years of her life, and began her first of many letters to the Tribunal of the Diocese of Wheeling. She wanted to prove that her marriage was invalid and that she should, therefore, be unbound from it. Praying to the Virgin and vowing to Ruth, she would provide as many statements, depositions, documents, and reports as would be necessary to obtain an annulment. She would do whatever it took to be rid of John Esposito for good, even if it took years. Even if it took everything.
March 18, 1945
Alta sat on a stool in front of the cabin window, stretched paper on her lap. A glass jar of cloudy water rested on the sill. Another one, empty, held her brushes. She was naked.
“What’s the color of happy?” she asked.
John was on the edge of the bed, his paints spread out on the rumpled sheets, his canvas on the easel he’d dragged in front of the nightstand. The cabin was filled with the scent of linseed and soup and the beginning of spring. He’d turned in the key to the company house he’d shared with Myrthen and moved the few things he wanted to keep up to the cabin, where he now lived full-time. Pushing his glasses up on top of his head, he scratched his beard. Then he tucked the paintbrush behind his ear.
“Purple,” he said after a moment.
She smiled. “Why?”
He looked up at the ceiling, the exposed beams overhead. The sun filtered in, backlighting the dust. “Because purple is when blue and red take a holiday and meet in the middle,” he said. “Even if it’s only for a little while.”
She nodded, and looked at him lying naked on his side, his long legs dangling off the end of the bed. She couldn’t see the canvas he was working on. They weren’t going to reveal them to each other until they were finished.
“Maybe we should paint the cabin purple then,” she said, teasing, still watching him. It had been four months and seven days since they’d first met in the woods.
“Or your self-portrait,” he said. He raised himself up and held up his canvas, its backside to her. “I think I might be winning.”
She tossed a rag at him, damp with runny rainbows. “Who said it was a race?”
He caught it and tossed it back. “Shhhh,” he said. “I’m working.”
The rag landed at her feet and she bent down to pick it up. They shared a glance when she looked back up, one he broke by removing the brush from behind his ear and picking up his palette once more. They painted that way for a while, naked and nearby, until the sun had set so low they needed lamplight to continue. During that stolen time with the man who’d become her lover, her senses were heightened; her yearnings, finally, satisfied. It was also the only time she felt a reprieve from her guilt.
“Finished,” he said. He reached down and set his palette on the floor, then tightened the caps on his many tubes of oil paints.
“I’m not,” she said.
“Show me.”
“You first.”
He smiled and slowly turned his easel out to face her.
It was a portrait of Alta, sitting with one leg tucked underneath the other on her chair by the window. Her watercolor was on her lap, and her face was turned back to him with a mysterious smile.
“Baby, it’s beautiful,” she said. She put down her things and walked over to him, sat on the bed. She took his bearded cheeks in her hands and kissed him. With her mouth still on his, she said, “But it’s not a self-portrait.”
“It is,” he said. He cupped the side of her angular face with one hand. “I see myself when I look at you. Because you’ve shown me who I am.” She kissed him again.
“When you turn to me and smile,” he said, “I remember the girl I wish I’d known. And I see the old woman I someday will. And then I just feel lucky I get to be with you now.”
She looked at the portrait with a faraway gaze.
Finally he said, “Show me yours.”
“It’s not finished.”
“I don’t care.”
She got up and walked over to where she’d left her painting. Sitting down next to him, she handed it to him, placing it carefully on his open palms.
It was a picture of the cabin, the foliage full of spring and blooming beyond the porch. The door was open and from within, a purple light glowed. In the center, just above the threshold, a multicolored butterfly floated inside. An abandoned cocoon lay on the middle step that led up to the porch.
He put his finger near the butterfly, wanting to touch it, but knowing better. Instead he reached out and took her hand, his eyes transfixed on the watercolored wings.
“That’s me,” she said. “Because of you.”
July 7, 1945
Saturdays in 1945, while the world warred on another continent, the Blackstone Coal Company hosted dances at the recreation center just up the hill from the center of town. Since the war had thinned the ranks at the mine, and the work was even harder and the pay still low, the bosses felt the dances would do the job of maintaining the company spirit. The bosses’ wives, dressed up in their homemade versions of the latest fashions and wearing husband-ordered smiles, served oatmeal cookies and Coca-Colas that boosted morale and brought different cultures — those that wouldn’t typically mix — together. A six-piece band played polkas and waltzes. Children sweated in circles on the dance floor, unaware of politics or destitution, and for a couple of hours at least, the adults could forget about them, too.
It was the first time Alta and Walter had attended. He’d been encouraged, strongly, to make an appearance. The bosses wanted the foremen to set a good example. He’d spent almost his whole life stooped over in a hole underground, and now they wanted him to play the host as well. How was that going to make the men feel better about their hollowed-out lives? Alta, wearing trousers and a handmade sweater, stood awkwardly against the wall next to her even-more-uncomfortable husband. Their son, Abel, huddled with a group of boys who were eyeing a group of girls giggling nearby.
Alta found herself swaying to the music, holding an uneaten cookie in one hand and a paper napkin in the other. Glancing around, she watched the other couples and thought about John. Then, as though she’d conjured him out of her imagination, she spotted him across the room, his hands — oh, those hands — jammed into his trouser pockets. She flushed and looked quickly away, but not before she caught the slow smile she knew was meant only for her. Had Walter noticed? No, he was watching other things from behind his same, dulled eyes. She knew he’d already be asleep in his easy chair, a newspaper folded across his knee, if they’d been allowed to remain at home.
Alta and John faced each other as the musical harmony pressed them together and apart. She had never seen her lover of eight months and her husband speak face-to-face. Never, that is, until now.
John kicked off the wall, and moved toward Alta and Walter through the throng of dancers. “Evening, Walter,” he said.
Walter, who’d been watching the band, turned toward him to look, taking a moment to adjust to the strange familiarity. Then he nodded and extended his hand. “John,” he said, low and sincere. “Good to see you.”
John turned to Alta. “You must be Walter’s wife. John Esposito.” He offered her his hand and she had no choice, no choice at all, but to slip her palm against his. Their webs met and spun into a silky tangle, warm and flashing damp. She forced herself to look him in the eye and smile modestly, then to say, “Yes, I’m Alta. How do you do.” But the extra fraction of time — a second, a year — made her blush, and she glanced away before letting his hand go. She had to be sure that nobody had noticed how deeply his eyes had penetrated her. “The band is wonderful, don’t you think? Walter? Aren’t they simply wonderful?”
“Not bad,” Walter said. “Not bad at all.”
“Why don’t the two of you cut a rug then?” John said, his eyes flicking to her like a tease.
She was sure her husband could feel the heat coming off them, standing as they were so dangerously close to one another. Taking a half step back, she said, “Yes, Walter, let’s do.” She reached over and touched her husband on the arm.
Walter put his hands in his pockets. “Oh no,” he said. “Not me. You know I’m not one for dancing.”
“Just one,” she said, somewhat pleading. She wasn’t one for dancing either.
“You want to dance, I bet John here would.” Walter tipped his broad, flat chin in John’s direction. “He swings a mean ax in the pit. Probably not a shabby dancer.”
Alta’s breath snagged. There’s no way Walter could know about them. They’d been nothing but discreet ever since they’d met the November before. And she didn’t do anything unusual at home, no updating of her wardrobe, no curling her hair. “Oh, I’m sure John would rather dance with his wife.” She flared her eyes at him, turning them into round O’s like a stop sign.
“My wife happens to be at church.” They weren’t divorced yet, but would be soon. He smiled again at her and lifted one eyebrow, then held out his hand once more, this time palm up, and waited.
Alta looked at her husband, who shrugged and gave a sort of half smile, relieved of the duty.
“I’m not a very good dancer,” she said.
“We’ll see.” John pushed his hand a little closer to hers.
She looked down at her own and took a breath. She handed the cookie she’d been holding to Walter, who took a bite right off, then she let John lead her away.
The band had just struck up another song. John positioned her in front of him, and she placed her left hand on his right shoulder. Draping his arm around her waist, he clasped her other hand, and they began moving to the music.
“You nearly made me break out in hives,” she whispered.
“Not weak in the knees?”
She allowed herself a tiny s
mile. “Always,” she said.
“I had to be near you,” he said.
“But doesn’t it look strange?”
“What, me saying hello to someone I’ve been working in the pit with for the past decade?”
“You’ve never socialized before. It looks odd.”
“No time like the present. War does that to people. Brings everyone closer together.” He smiled at her. “Besides, we hide right out in the open. Doesn’t look quite as suspicious that way.”
“You’re mad.”
“Mad about you is all,” he said, and he pulled her ever so slightly closer and turned her in a gentle spin. She sought Walter as she went around, worried that she seemed too relaxed in the arms of another man, but he was looking in the other direction. Still, she increased the distance between herself and John by an inch or two.
He responded by moving his thumbs slowly up and down, one at her waist, the other against her uplifted palm. A caress so slight that nobody would notice, even if they were looking, but deliberate enough that it caused a rush of blood both upward and down. The room was too busy, too full.
“I love you, Alta.”
Her heart pounded. She made a strict effort to keep her face from melting into bliss. She looked again for Walter — he was watching his own feet — then let herself look John directly in the eye, just for a moment, just long enough.
“I love you, too.”
“Do you think,” he said after a moment, “we could ever not hide?”
But before she could think of an answer, the song ended and John had no choice but to let go of her. He bent over in a formal bow, and she almost laughed, but caught herself in time. He walked her back to where her husband stood and handed her off to Walter. Both of them flushed from their first profession of love, the dance, the thrill, and — at least in her case — more than a little guilt.
