by Kim Aubrey
“You should have thought of that before you left.”
“You know this isn’t working, André.”
“Braden and I are fine.”
“He needs his mother.”
“You think we can’t function without you, that we spend our time moping around the house, but you’re wrong. We’re both fine. So why don’t you just leave us alone.”
“My lawyer is going to call,” she’d warned. But so far, he hadn’t heard.
Thursday, Katya was early. She set her paints beside André’s. “I didn’t want to miss the demo.”
“It’s a still life.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I prefer a good landscape.”
“Still life’s okay. Maybe I can get it right this time.”
“It’s not about right. When are you going to learn that?”
“It’s all about getting it right,” he said. “Sometimes the gods smile but most of the time they don’t.”
Miriam turned in her chair to look at him. “You have it all wrong,” she said. “The gods can’t smile unless you do.”
André frowned. He suspected the women of mocking him.
“You don’t smile much, do you?” Katya laughed.
He resolved to work up a smile for her.
Barry was composing the still life—one half of a watermelon lay on its cut side like a dark green hill, the other, sliced into wedges, revealed its red flesh and black seeds. He placed one wedge in front of the melon hill and one behind, then added a spray of purple leaves to partially conceal the bulk of the fruit.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to start with a sketch.” He roughed in the melon pieces and the leaves with a soft pencil. “I like that composition. It makes a nice negative shape of the background. I’m going to have a small dark—the leaves and the dark stripes on the melon rind.” He shaded them heavily. “A large mid-tone—the melons and the cast shadow. And a medium-sized light—the background and the reflections on the fruit. You might choose to make the background larger and have a medium-sized mid-tone, but this is the way I’m doing it.”
André thought he’d do it that way too. He’d yet to see one of Barry’s paintings go awry. He watched in the overhanging mirror while Barry put paint to paper, and, without any apparent thought or effort, conjured bright images.
Eager to begin, he followed Barry’s lead, and let his painting take shape under his brush, exploring the curve of the melon rind and the vibrancy of its flesh where crimson blended into rose madder. He remembered to leave triangles and squares of white paper for the highlights. He forgot about himself, forgot about Katya sitting beside him, the other students bent over their paintings, and Barry making his rounds, until the teacher stood behind him.
“Leave it there,” Barry said. “You’ve got it. If you keep painting you’re going to muddy it.”
André set down his brush. “Do you think it’s done?”
“It’s very nice. Especially that melon wedge in the foreground. You’ve captured the different tones there very nicely. I like this soft pink background and the feathery quality of the leaves against the strong melon shapes. Everything works to set off that red flesh.”
“That’s a good painting,” Katya said.
“Beautiful,” said Miriam.
André felt his chest swell, as when strangers admired his son. “Finally, I got it.”
“You got it once,” Barry said. “That’ll be enough to keep you going until the next time. Why don’t you start another while you’re on a roll? And try staying for critique tonight.”
André prepared another piece of paper, taping the edges to the board. He sketched the composition on a drawing pad. This time he’d make a large dark—a close-up focusing on the big curve and dark stripes of the melon’s skin. But when he picked up his brush, the blank paper made him think about his marriage, and caused his hand to tremble.
One night, a few weeks before she’d left, Liz had said, “I’ve never felt loved by you.”
“I tell you I love you all the time.” He’d stared at her pale lashes, the whites of her eyes.
“You’re always either finding fault with the things that are important to me—the paintings I admire, the installations and artists at work—or putting me on a pedestal, like I’m this domestic goddess that I’m just so tired of trying to be.”
“That’s not how it is. You’re the one always finding fault with me. You never say it outright, but you think I’m a failure, that I don’t have the guts to start my own practice. You don’t love me.”
“That’s not true.”
But she’d proven him right. All that stuff about not feeling loved had just been an excuse.
Even now his chest felt heavy with the memory of her lying to him. Starting to wheeze and cough, he fled to the adjacent kitchen for a drink.
Katya sauntered in to freshen her painting water. “You look flushed. Are you sick?” she asked.
“It’s hot in here.” Everything looked blurred, undefined. He searched for his glasses in his empty shirt pocket.
“I’m a nurse, you know.” She peered into his eyes. “I see sick people all day. Are you sure you’re not sick?”
“Maybe I am.” He’d heard her tell Miriam that she was a nurse, but he’d forgotten. Nursing had seemed too prosaic a career for Katya. Now she was leaning so close to him that he was able to see her clearly without his glasses—her velvety hair, her skin reddish beneath high cheekbones, the smile lines on either side of her mouth. He kept still, enjoying her nearness, feeling his breath quicken.
“Maybe I have a serious illness that requires lots of nursing.”
“No,” she said, slowly sizing him up. “You look all right to me. I’m more worried about my melon. It doesn’t look well at all.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his neck, still sore from last week’s attempt at fixing the light, which had since been dismantled, so that tonight only the shell of the fixture remained.
When Katya looked at him, did she see what Liz saw? What Bridget saw? Lately Bridget had been moping around the house. Last night he’d scolded her for serving half-cooked fish sticks and leaving the laundry in the dryer to wrinkle. She’d burst into tears, and wept openly on the sofa, making him feel like a brute.
“I’m sorry,” he’d repeated half a dozen times, kneeling in front of her with a box of Kleenex.
She’d laughed then, reaching out a hand as if to caress his face, but only touching one finger to the tip of his nose.
He decided to try one more time with Katya. “Show me your painting,” he said. The swirling strokes of red and orange made the melons look wild, but still recognizable, unlike the fruits and flowers Liz used to paint before they were married, her large canvases laden with impenetrable slabs of colour.
“Very nice. You just need some highlights and a cast shadow here.”
“Of course. I forgot the shadow. Thanks.” She turned her back on him, and filled her brush with paint.
He contemplated the sketch he’d prepared. It was okay, but there wasn’t enough time for him to start a new watercolour. Instead he walked around the room and looked at everyone else’s. Returning to his seat, viewing his painting from a distance, his face grew hot. It was fucking amateurish. His colours weren’t as clear as he’d thought. The purple splotch on the melon’s flesh, which had seemed a charming rendition of a bruise, now looked like a mistake.
Next to his painting lay the blank paper. He’d thought it had reminded him of his marriage because that’s how they’d started—with a fresh sheet on which they’d both proceeded to hurl paint and make a mess. But maybe Liz was the white paper, not blank, but exposed to a constant source of light that cast a blinding reflection. Is that why she’d stopped painting? Had his opinions discouraged her? He remembered now that the six months she’d taken off work had been meant as a sabbatical, a
time for her to paint. But Liz had felt blocked.
“I can’t work here,” she’d said, furiously whisking egg whites for a soufflé. “I get distracted by housework and cooking. And the lighting is too harsh.”
“Those are just excuses,” he’d said. “If you really wanted to paint, none of that would matter.”
“If I really wanted to paint, I’d find a more supportive partner,” Liz had yelled, flinging the foamy egg at André’s face.
He’d thought their marriage was perfect, but maybe she’d been telling the truth about never feeling loved. Maybe disappointment was what had made her restless and bitter, disappointment in the meagerness of his love. So stingy he couldn’t even give his own son a marshmallow or make the phone call Braden had trusted him to make, inviting Liz to hear him sing at school. Or summon the courage to turn off the light that made the things it shone on appear either brightly perfect or horrifyingly blank.
He sat hunched over his still life, staring at the backs of the other students’ heads, until Katya said, “That’s your breakthrough painting. You’re getting the hang.”
“I don’t like it. The fruit’s too dark.”
“It’s stormy. I know I complain about still life, but it’s really the same as landscape, only on a smaller scale. You’ve got another seascape there. That melon’s a ship.”
“Then how do you explain all that pink?”
“That’s dawn.” Katya grinned.
“Don’t say, it’s darkest before the dawn,” André groaned.
“You rescued mine. See how the shadows ground the fruit? They looked like they were floating before.”
“Let’s go out for coffee to celebrate.” He blurted the words before remembering how she’d rejected him in the kitchen.
“I’m meeting someone after.” She flipped back the hair on one side of her face, as if tossing André back into a pond.
“Me too.” He gulped for the breath he’d missed while awaiting her answer. “I forgot I have a date with my son for hot chocolate.” He hastily packed his brushes and paints before Barry could catch him for critique.
At home, a strange red car blocked the driveway. Liz’s new car. André’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as he parked on the street.
The house was dark. He switched on a light, listened for Braden’s voice. Nothing. He strode upstairs, peered into Braden’s room. The bed was empty. Liz had taken his son. André felt his heart plummet, as if the cracks in his chest had finally given way, and sent everything crashing. But why was her car still here? They must be somewhere in the house. Why hadn’t he thought to seek out Bridget in the basement? He knew he’d find them there—Bridget and Liz—all chummy, chatting like women do, no secrets, their men revealed, exposed. He sprinted downstairs, but stalled halfway, hearing a muffled voice. Heart beating fast, he found himself calling her name, a hopeful, soft “Liz,” surfacing from his chest. But when he got to the bottom of the stairs, all he saw through the open door was Bridget on the phone.
“I’ll call you back, Mum,” she said.
“Where are they?”
“She took him down the street to a friend’s. They should be back any minute. I told her you’d be home soon.”
“She could’ve taken him away,” he said, his voice breaking. “You shouldn’t even let her into the house!”
“But she’s his mother.”
He took off his glasses, wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “You shouldn’t have answered the door.”
“Now I’ll know.” She spoke softly, careful of him. She sounded older, nearly maternal. Liz hadn’t spoken kindly to him in so long.
“It’s okay,” Bridget said, as he slid his arms around her, letting his forehead rest against hers.
She seemed to be pardoning his mistakes, erasing his failures, easing his guilt.
“I’m leaving in a couple weeks.” She pulled away, her face as pink as it had been a week ago when he’d thought she’d been on the phone with a boyfriend.
“Am I that hard to work for?”
“It’s nothing to do with you. I miss home too much.”
He leaned towards her again. She let him kiss her.
He felt a space open in his chest. “Whatever you want to do is fine,” he said. He wanted to do something large and generous for her, send her home tomorrow with three month’s wages. The thought made him feel almost happy. But then he’d have to find someone else to look after his son.
“You’d better go,” Bridget said, her face even pinker, as she pushed him out the door.
“I have to go get Braden,” he said.
He hadn’t seen Liz and Braden together in months; she’d always arranged her visits to coincide with André’s absences.
He stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed in front of his chest, and waited for Liz, unable to think what he might say to her. For now his neck had stopped hurting. It felt easy and warm as he sketched circles with his head. But he could feel the weather changing, a cold wind piecing itself together out of the silky November night.
His eyes grew dry and sore from staring down the street, almost forgetting to blink, until two shadows—one large, one small—emerged from the dark. He squinted as they passed under a street lamp, but the light did nothing to make their pairing less strange, or less natural.
Lemon Curl
WITHIN THE LOW, GREYING BERMUDA LIMESTONE WALL grows a further wall of pink oleander, bordering the lemon grove. A big arching white cedar stands across from the lemon trees. Under its shade, no grass will grow, and the ground, red from the iron-rich soil, lies bare and soft. A curving gravel path leads up past rose bushes and nasturtiums to a small white house with dark green shutters. Twelve years ago, before she and Larry bought the property, Liv had asked the owners if the lemons were edible. She’d understood from childhood that the milky sap of oleanders was poisonous, and wondered if the poison might leach into the soil. The owners had told her not to worry; they’d been eating the lemons for years.
One morning, towards the close of 1982, lemons fall from the tree and tumble through the rain-soaked air. Liv is falling too, although looking at her, you can see no movement of any kind. She lies flat on her stomach in bed, face pressed into the pillow so that you wonder how she can breathe, or if she is alive at all.
If you could see inside Liv’s head, you’d be struck by the jumble of brightly coloured images—plump oranges, yellow and red lantana, striped horse jumps, translucent purple jellyfish, small pink hands, achingly white sails—all falling at different speeds, all subject to gravity. At one time, Liv had managed to keep the images circling, holding them in the air like a juggler—talented, promising Liv, who had dreamed of starting a horse-riding school and breeding horses, but who has instead found herself alone with a brood of children and a grove full of lemons.
Her children are stretched out in various positions on the living-room floor, playing Monopoly, travelling past Go, collecting two hundred dollars, going to jail, constantly surprised by their good, bad, and indifferent luck.
“Oh, shit!” says Lucy when she lands on Boardwalk, owned by her brother, Luke, who added a house to his property each time he passed Go.
“Pay up.” Luke holds out his palm.
“I’ll have to mortgage my railroads and sell my hotels. Shit and damn!” At seven, Lucy loves to practice her swearing in her parents’ absence.
“Watch your mouth,” warns her older sister, Laina.
“Just because Mom’s sick doesn’t make you the boss.” Lucy dumps her hotels into the cardboard box.
“Mom’s not sick,” Luke says. “She’s gone mental.”
“Don’t say that!” Lucy hurls her favourite playing piece, a Scottie dog, at her brother’s face. The steel clinks against his tooth.
“That hurt, you little shit.” Luke jumps for Lucy, grabbing onto her tangled blonde hai
r.
“Stop it!” Laina rushes to separate them. Play money and plastic houses scatter over the board. “That’s enough,” she says in exactly their mother’s old tone.
“I’m sick of you both.” Luke glares at his sisters.
“Go to hell.” Laina dumps the Monopoly board back into the box.
The screen door slams behind Lucy as she hurtles across the rose garden in the rain. When she reaches the steps leading down to the grove of trees, she stops to pull up her sagging knee socks. Rain pelts her head and skin. If you listen carefully, you can pick out the tune of the song she sings to make herself feel happy again. It’s one of the reggae songs her father used to play on the stereo—Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” She skips down the steps and climbs the old white cedar. Under its sheltering branches, the rain becomes a drizzle. Years ago, her father nailed a platform up there and called it a tree fort. That was for Luke, but Lucy is the one who uses it most. The nails are rusty now, and the boards shift a little under her weight. “Don’t worry,” she sings. Through the trailing leaves, she can see her mother’s lemon trees, the plump yellow fruit glistening between dark shiny leaves, the fallen lemons like wet grenades in the slick crab grass.
Lucy climbs down for some. They are so ripe their rinds are almost orange. She knows they’ll taste as sweet as lemonade, not like the lemons from the grocery store, or the ones served in iced tea at restaurants in town. They never go out to eat anymore. She hasn’t had a hamburger or fried chicken in over six months. They eat hot dogs, grilled cheese, canned soup, mostly prepared by Laina. Back in the tree, Lucy digs her fingernails into the thin lemon rind, which pulls easily from the fruit. She lets the curling pieces of rind fall to the earth. Her mother says that these lemons are a superior variety, what all lemons should be like, but Lucy cannot remember the name. She thinks it begins with an M.
Liv has not stirred except for a slight shift in the position of her head to seek air. The movement in and out of her nostrils is soft and slow. She can subsist on very little. Lately she rouses herself only when Laina brings her tea or soup. She’d wanted to name Laina Toby after Larry’s dead father, but Larry had said he didn’t want to be reminded of the past every time he looked at his daughter. He was the one who chose the children’s names, continuing the alliterative trend he and Liv had accidentally begun. She’d thought it silly until he persuaded her that the L’s were a way of declaring their unity, of looping them all closer together.
