Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees

by Grace Mattioli

CHAPTER SIX: LIGHTNING BUGS AT DUSK

  As soon as Silvia got back to Frank’s house, she went to her room to find her lonely self-portrait screaming out for company. She had neglected the painting for just the right amount of time, and now she could return to it with fresh eyes. Often times, she would not know what she wanted to paint and would start painting and let the image come to her. Now, she found herself painting her mother’s face and so she decided that this work of art was destined to be a family portrait.

  She wanted to capture the sparkle that had been in Donna’s face before Frank wore her down-- the sparkle that was just starting to reemerge. Silvia wanted to show the love that her mom had had for her children coming through her eyes. She wanted to get the way her skin shone even when she was tired and the way she always looked so held together and sure of herself, even when she wasn’t. She painted her mother on the edge of the canvas, leaving room between herself and Donna for other family members. The two of them needed some space between them.

  Vince would be right beside Donna, as they needed no space. She wanted to paint the way that his eyes shone with earnestness and honesty; the way his bleeding heart bled through his skin; the way he was always going forward, as if backwards wasn’t even an option; the way he looked, acted, and moved through life, like a superhero of sorts. Maybe Thor, or even Superman.

  When she was finished with Vince, she started on Cosmo, who she placed on the right side of herself, as he was without a doubt, the closest family member to her. She was so comfortable with him, in fact, that having him around sometimes felt like having no one around at all. He required very little energy from her. He didn’t compete with her like Vince, or cast disapproval upon her like Angie. He didn’t fight with her like Frank, or stay distant from her like Donna. He did challenge her at times, but a part of her must have appreciated these challenges at some level, or she would not keep going back for them.

  She painted him looking kind of like a palm tree, tall and lanky with hair going in all directions. She wanted to paint his cold scientific rationality trying to squeeze through his goofy misfit self. She wanted to paint his eyes that hid nothing and that always seemed to know what was right. More than anything, she wanted to paint his hands, with his long, skinny fingers, with bulging veins. Hands so big that they could hold the sky.

  There was just the right amount of room to the right of Cosmo for two more people. She absolutely didn’t want to put him near Frank because she knew how bad Frank was for him. She knew that he would not want to be near Angie, but since she had only Angie or Frank left, she chose Angie. While they didn’t like one another, they would just have to deal with being next to each other for this painting, and that was all that there was to it!

  She painted Angie like the Snow White look-alike she was, groomed to perfection. But she also wanted to paint the sadness hidden behind her beauty. She wanted to paint the way she was always looking out, as if she had ordered happiness on a menu in some fine restaurant, and was waiting at a table for a waiter to bring it to her on a plate made of fine china.

  She left enough space on the right of her sister for one more person, who undoubtedly would be Frank. As it was four in the morning, she couldn’t possibly start Frank. The very early sunlight trickled in through her window making bright white spots scatter throughout the floor and walls of her room. She closed the curtains to make her room almost as dark as Cosmo’s apartment, collapsed on her bed, and fell instantly asleep.