The Golden Hour

by T. Greenwood

  Ikea. I tried to imagine my birches mass-produced, hanging in the staged rooms of Ikea. Price tags hanging from the modular furniture, drapes pulled across imaginary windows. Faucets that drew no water.

  “Of course, the compensation would be significant,” she said.

  I thought about what I would do if suddenly I had a windfall of money. What would it be like to not worry, for once, every time I opened my wallet? To release that albatross that clung to my neck? The burden of it was as familiar as the weight of my own arms. What would it be like to be able to give Avery everything she wanted, needed? For Gus not to have to break his back at the sign shop?

  Gus. What would he think of this?

  I knew exactly what he’d think of this. That I was selling my soul. To some Swedish corporation. That by doing this, my work became no better than a $4.95 plate of Swedish meatballs served up on a conveyor belt.

  “Do you think you’d be able to get it done by then?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I mean, of course.”

  * * *

  Later that night, still buzzing from too much wine and contemplative from the weed, I crawled out of bed, tiptoed past Pilar and Avery’s rooms to work on the tree painting with a bowl of heated-up mashed potatoes and gravy to fuel me.

  The painting was huge. Normally, I kept the commissions to a manageable size, 11 x 14, 16 x 20. But this one needed to be made for a room Ginger had described as cavernous, with cathedral ceilings, I imagined. It had barely fit in the trunk of my car. The canvas alone cost me nearly half of the deposit she gave me. And the other half was long, long gone.

  I laid out the swatches next to my palette and began to mix the colors, feeling increasingly pissed off with every brush stroke. Umber, sage. I imagined her bragging about it to her friends: “Yes, this is an original piece. I told the artist, It needs to match the Chesterfield sofa, the Bandhini throw pillows.”

  Still, I painted. If I didn’t paint, I wouldn’t be able to buy groceries. To eat. I couldn’t even think about Ikea; I needed to think about getting this done. If I could just finish, then I could get my check. I could send this off to Ginger to show the Ikea people. It could change everything.

  But as I worked, I felt the eyes of the woman in the photograph staring at me. Of course, she wasn’t really looking at me. She was looking at the photographer, whoever had captured this private moment.

  Still, they seemed to implore me. And I felt queasy as I painted the happy birches, the legion of stiff soldiers standing guard in their tiny rows. I blamed the wine. The weed. The mashed potatoes. The trees themselves. I blamed Pilar getting a show at the National Gallery. I blamed Gus for carrying Avery when I made her walk. I blamed Robby Rousseau. And I blamed myself.

  Inquiry

  “So you don’t remember if Robby was at the school still or if he had already left with his brother?”

  “Miss Davies. I know this is difficult. But we are trying to establish at what point he began to follow you. And when you became aware you were not alone.”

  “Can we get you some water? Are you thirsty?”

  “Okay. So you were late leaving school, and you decided to take the shortcut across the lower playing fields and through the woods to your parents’ home. You were unaware you were being followed at this point.”

  “A simple yes or no will suffice, Miss Davies.”

  “Miss Davies?”

  In Remembrance

  A very held onto Pilar’s legs as she tried to make her way out to the rental car the next morning. Inside the house, the repairmen were already working away on the list of items Pilar had noted needed fixing: the downstairs toilet, the broken, dripping faucet in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, the carpenter guy I want to do the stairs is on vacation,” she said. “When I get back, we’ll tackle the rest.”

  “Are you coming for Christmas?” Avery asked as Pilar picked her up and squeezed her. “Will you bring me something from your trip?”

  “Av,” I said. “Don’t be rude.”

  “I won’t be back until New Year’s Eve, but I promise I will bring you lots and lots of presents.”

  “Something smells spoiled,” I said, pinching my nose with my fingers.

  I didn’t remind Avery she’d be with Gus then. He would have her from Christmas until the second week of January. I was trying not to think about it myself.

  “Love you, honey,” Pilar said, setting Avery down and hugging me. She was wearing a vintage coat I remembered her finding on one of our thrifting trips. It was made for a man, a massive shearling coat in perfect condition. But peeking out from underneath the thrift store find was a new pair of boots. Burberry riding boots. Ones we’d ogled over in a Vogue magazine in the Planned Parenthood waiting room earlier in the fall when she came with me for my annual exam.

  “Have a safe trip,” I said, hugging her and kissing her cheek.

  “Good luck with Gus next weekend,” she said.

  I nodded. God, Gus would be here in just a week. I missed him. A lot. But I also worried having him here would likely tear the delicate scab starting to form on that wound.

  After we said our lengthy, tearful good-byes, we went back inside and I made potato pancakes for Avery from the leftover mashed potatoes. Pilar had gotten up before the rest of us and cleaned the kitchen so the workers could get to the sink. I was grateful now, as my hangover set in, not to have to deal with the dishes. I was searching the counter for the spatula when I noticed an envelope sitting on top of the new iPad she’d brought. Inside was a note: “Thank you for such a lovely visit. Love you both so much. Let Hank know what needs to be fixed. Here’s his number. He’ll just bill me later. And this is for anything else that pops up.” Five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills fell on the table. I felt guilty, but with this, I wouldn’t have to touch my checking account for at least a couple of weeks.

  “What are we doing today, Mama?” Avery asked, shoveling the pancakes into her mouth.

  Normally on the day after Thanksgiving we’d go into the city to look at the lights. To see the tree at Rockefeller Center. To gaze in the windows at all of the beautiful Christmas displays.

  Upstairs, I heard the banging and clanging of pipes, the scratchy music of the workers’ radio. Not good for my headache.

  “Why don’t we go into town,” I said.

  “Can I send a letter to Daddy?”

  “Sure.”

  I found the stack of photo envelopes the guy at the drugstore had given me, and while I was tempted to send them all off, I filled out only two more of them with our address and my debit card info. We drove into town, and at the post office, I mailed two rolls of film (these both dated 8/15/76) and taught Avery how to open the mailbox. I watched her as she concentrated on the little dial like a thief cracking a safe.

  “Look!” she said, reaching her tiny arm into the deep recesses of the box. “It’s from Daddy!”

  There were two envelopes inside, both of them from Gus. One was for me and one was for Avery. Mine had a child support check with a sticky note. “A little extra here for the holidays.” Avery’s was filled with My Little Pony sticker sheets. A photo of him standing with his arms outstretched. On the back in Sharpie, it said, “This is a hug.”

  It made me angry for some reason. All of it. He was making this so difficult. I used to scoff at the idea of couples staying together for their children, living out their miserable lives together simply to appease their bratty kids. But every time he did something like this, I felt like I was betraying Avery. Depriving Avery. Gus was a great dad. Probably one of the best. And because I was selfish and bitter, I had taken this away from my daughter. He made me hate myself without even trying.

  * * *

  “When is Daddy coming?” Avery asked when I tucked her into bed later that night.

  “Soon, baby.” Avery’s concept of time was still so nebulous. Days of the week meant almost nothing to her. The passage of weeks could be years as far as she was concerned. I wondered som
etimes at what point children began to live within the realm of time. She seemed to exist above it, beyond it. Tomorrow was the only thing she could understand. Even yesterday was sometimes too hard to grasp.

  “I haven’t seen him forever,” she said.

  And so I didn’t correct her, tell her it had only been a few weeks. That it felt like forever to me too.

  * * *

  The next batch of photos came the day before Gus was set to arrive. Avery and I had taken the walking ferry into the city to pick up a few things for his visit and stopped by the post office on our way home. I waited to look at the photos until we got back to the house, savoring the anticipation. I knew it would be a while before I could dish out any more money to get additional rolls of film developed. This was an extravagance. A luxury. And if the last batch was any indication, a good number of these would be either under or overexposed. And so I delayed looking at them for as long as I could stand.

  Avery and I ate grilled cheese sandwiches made with the thick, delicious bread Pilar had picked up at the health food store in Portland, with creamy Havarti cheese and sweet pears inside like some sort of decadent treat. Pilar had spoiled us. I’d held onto Gus’s check rather than cashing it, though. It was safer in my wallet than in the bank. I’d need to save it for Christmas presents.

  While Avery played quietly upstairs, I made a cup of tea, still enjoying the suspense. When the tea had finally steeped, I opened the envelope and shook the stack of photos out into my hand.

  Both rolls appeared to have been taken in a parking lot somewhere, outside of a Shaw’s grocery store. A 1970s Plymouth was at the forefront of the first photo, and leaning against the hood of the car was a teenage couple. The boy was sitting on the car and had his hands wrapped around the waist of the girl, who wore a striped tube top. She teetered on a pair of platform heels, and his knees seemed to trap her on either side of her skinny legs.

  With only a cursory glance, it would look like a couple of teenagers maybe playing hooky to make out. But as I leaned closer, I could see that while you couldn’t discern the details of her face, you could see she was pulling away. Resisting. But his hands were big, encircling her waist. And she couldn’t leave. I held my breath as I looked at the next photos in the stack. Each photo was of the same couple, in each one her resistance becoming more and more clear until the struggle was both obvious and futile. But while those photos were raw, scary, that first one was the most heartbreaking. Because in it, you could see the beginnings of her body’s defiance. The impulse, the urge. She was on the precipice of flight, but seemed to know as soon as she moved, he would squeeze tighter; that she was trapped.

  I scanned and blew this one up as well, hanging it next to the photo of the prostitute.

  And after I checked to make sure Avery was sleeping, I returned to my makeshift studio and pulled out the painting of the birches. Ikea, I thought. But my eyes were drawn to the two photographs hanging on the wall.

  “What?” I said to the prostitute whose imploring gaze haunted me, to the teenager with panic in her eyes. “What do you want?”

  Inquiry

  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  I knew exactly what they wanted from me. They wanted to travel with me across the playing fields, they wanted to hold my beating heart in their hands. They wanted to feel the terror that made me fear my bowels might release as I peered at the woods before me, and at the car still idling at the road. To be trapped with me. They wanted to be me. In order to believe me.

  “Why don’t we talk about what happened after. Maybe that would be easier?”

  “Okay.”

  “How did you get out of the woods? After?”

  “I walked.”

  “But you had been hurt.”

  “I didn’t feel anything.”

  I felt everything. I felt the cold, damp grass against my bare ankles. I felt the stinging, throbbing, wetness, bleeding. I felt the moon on my shoulders; even moonglow hurt when it touched me. I felt alone.

  “And you were naked?”

  “Yes.”

  There was so much blood, I kept slipping on it. It felt like the first time I went ice-skating. On this same field, which they flooded in the winter and turned to ice.

  “And you went to your parents’ house?”

  “Yes.”

  I remember standing in the backyard, looking at the lights inside the house. How warm and inviting it seemed. I could see the silhouette of my mother, talking on the phone. Home. But I couldn’t make my legs move. I knew the second I climbed up the back steps . . .

  “I crawled. Up the steps.”

  . . . it would change everything. I remember thinking, This is your family. You are safe. You are a girl. Your name is Wyn Elizabeth Davies. You are thirteen years old. This is your family.

  “What did she say when she saw you? Your mother? She’s the one who found you?”

  My mother came to the door. Thought there was an animal in the backyard. A skunk. A raccoon. She’d been on the phone calling Hanna to see if I’d gone to her house. She wasn’t worried yet. When she heard the scratching at the screen door, she thought it was the neighbor’s cat.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  She didn’t recognize me. I am a girl. My name is Wyn Elizabeth Davies. I am thirteen years old. Her eyes were so scared. “What happened, oh my God, what happened?” Her hands touching my face, wiping the blood out of my eyes.

  “Do you need to take a break?”

  “No. I’m finished.”

  Snow Family

  I didn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours each night the week before Gus arrived. Instead, I’d get out of bed and work on the commission. I’d paint for hours, manic, holding my breath as the brush moved across the textured canvas, though it seemed like my progress was slow, each stroke a sort of Sisyphean task. No matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t seem to finish. When I finally fell asleep again, my dreams were dark, frantic. In the morning, I was delirious and exhausted.

  I didn’t know what to expect from Gus’s stay. Unlike Pilar’s visit, Gus’s made me anxious. Instead of being excited to see him, to show him this beautiful place, to watch what was certain to be a joyful reunion between him and Avery, I felt a prevailing sort of dread. At first I thought it was simply that I’d been living such a solitary life out here, and an invasion of this sort might disrupt the small amount of peace I’d located. But that wasn’t the case. Having Pilar here had been a relief, an encounter with civilization, with grown-up conversation.

  Finally, as I was making a bed for him in one of the empty bedrooms, leaving the bottom untucked (he always untucked the ends of the sheets before he got into bed, feeling trapped otherwise), I realized what it was. Since that argument, the one that shattered fifteen years of history with a single, careless blow, I’d been unable to control my bitterness. As if this, all of this, were his fault. I hated myself around Gus. I deplored who I had become. And isn’t that why we split up in the first place? It was like he’d turned a mirror and made me look at exactly who I was now. There was no hiding from myself when Gus was around. There was no running away.

  That night as we waited for him to arrive, a storm front came down from Canada, and with it a terrible, bone-chilling cold. The waves were high and hard and loud. The sky was completely opaque.

  I made chowder in the Crock-Pot with the leftover lobster, and Avery helped me bake biscuits. Earlier, we had unrolled a long sheet of paper from the roll I’d taken from her easel when we left New York, and spread it out across the dining room floor. She had wanted to write Welcome Home, Daddy! But I couldn’t bring myself to help her. This wasn’t our home. And he wasn’t returning. He was just here for a long weekend. And so instead, when I spelled out the words for her on a scratch piece of paper, I wrote Welcome to Bluffs Island, Daddy!

  She had carefully, meticulously copied the letters onto the banner, used my acrylic paints to fill the letters in, and painted a rainbow across the
background, weaving it expertly through the words. It was pretty impressive for a four-year-old. God forbid, we had an artist on our hands, but truthfully, how could it be avoided?

  Outside it wasn’t really snowing, but rather teasing us with the promise of snow, a few solitary snowflakes fluttering down from the sky. Avery insisted on bundling up in her snowsuit (the one my mother had found at a consignment shop in Haven). I wrapped her up in a scarf, made her wear mittens and boots, and watched as she paced up and down the front yard, skipping on an imaginary hopscotch board. After about a half hour of this, she got bored and sat down on the front steps. I made her a cup of cocoa in the microwave, added extra marshmallows, and took it out to her.

  “When is he coming?” she asked, sighing, the weight of the world on her two small shoulders.

  One amber curl had dipped into the cocoa. I plucked it out, sucked it.

  “Gross, Mama!”

  “Yummy,” I said, smirking. “He’ll be here soon. The ferry might be running late because of the storm. I’ll call him.”

  * * *

  “I’m on the ferry,” he said. “Is Avery waiting?”

  I peered out the window at her sitting on the steps.

  “Yuh,” I said.

  “You’re starting to sound like a real Mainer.”

  “Ha.”

  “I brought everything you said you needed,” he said. “I hope I remembered everything.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “If you forgot anything, I mean.” I had asked for him to bring me my robe, the gorgeous post-breakup cashmere one Pilar had gifted me. The long thermal underwear I had, somehow, neglected to pack. The portable speaker to plug my iPhone into to play music while I was working.

  “If there’s anything else you need, I can always send it.”

  “Cool,” I said. I hated the small talk that composed most of our conversations now. Gus and I were talkers. As a couple, we had never, ever been at a loss for words. Our sentences tumbled over each other’s like kids rolling down a grassy hill. Words and syllables tangled up, apologizing for the collisions. But now, there were vast pauses between our syllables. It was as if the further apart we grew, the longer these pauses and the shorter and terser our sentences became.