The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  “You’re not staying at Henna’s?”

  He shuddered. “I can’t face Henna’s yet.”

  Aly sighed. “You can stay here.”

  Did she think he played on her sympathies to get a yes? “I’ll keep out of your way.”

  She looked up sharply. “Good night, Cal.” She turned away and crossed the few steps to her bunk.

  His eyes riveted to her legs and bare feet as she climbed into bed. An ache caught in his chest. “Aly—”

  “Hmm.”

  “Thanks.”

  He’d propose in October—six months out of jail, ten months sober. They’d get married in December when he’d been sober a year.

  He couldn’t imagine what yes would feel like.

  Or, no.

  Fish moved down the row of his family, receiving their hugs as though he were moving down a wedding receiving line—except he savored each one. His family had only arrived three days ago, and it still felt like a dream having them here for his graduation.

  Chelsea rattled off her congratulations in Spanish. Tan and dark-haired, she almost looked Peruvian at twenty-three.

  He feigned irritation. “Quit showing off. I could have learned Spanish, the easy way, too, you know.”

  She laughed and called him one of the bad words she’d been teaching him. He couldn’t remember if it was generic bad or really bad.

  He spotted Missy receiving hugs from the Koomers outside the field house. Cal knocked her graduation cap askew. She grinned at her brother.

  Fish moved toward them, against the crowd exiting the complex. He could guess what Cal was feeling. His kid sister trophying a diploma, his best friend, ditto. Cal with nothing.

  Cal held out his palm. “Congratulations.”

  Fish grasped Cal’s thick hand. The physical contact felt good. “Thanks.”

  Cal opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, then closed it.

  Fish let go, stepping away from the whirlpool of emotion Cal stirred.

  Cal smiled wistfully. “Someday it will be, ‘Congratulations, Senator Fisher.’ ”

  Why did Cal have to bring up his political ambition now—a reminder that Cal had woken and nearly killed Fish’s prospects a year ago. But strangely, the anger that usually came with the memory was absent.

  Cal had no such hopes for his own life.

  Fish swallowed, but the lump stayed in his throat. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about legal aid recently.” Even more so since he studied for Cal’s defense.

  Aly walked around a planter and hugged him. “Happy graduation, Fish.”

  “Thanks.” He turned to Missy, going in for the hug.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chas, fighting the crowd toward them.

  Fish’s lips landed on Missy’s for a quarter of a second. He grinned into her surprised eyes. “We made it.”

  He’d managed to stay away from Missy for the last two months since Henna’s funeral, but like an alcoholic, one taste and he had to have more. “Go for a drink later?”

  Aly shot him a thumb’s up from behind Missy’s back.

  Missy barked a laugh. “That’s not happening.”

  She might as well have thrown a hard right into his gut. “Why not?”

  “I don’t turn twenty-one for another six weeks.”

  “You’re still a baby.” The words were out before he could stop them, a knee-jerk reaction to her jab.

  Mirth vacuumed from Missy’s eyes.

  Starr herded them into the throng of people. “Cake and ice cream at the house.”

  A half-hour later Jackson pushed his plate away and speared him with his eyes. “So, what’s your five-year plan, Fish?”

  His folks, sitting across the table, cocked their heads in Fish’s direction.

  Jackson could be making conversation, but he couldn’t help thinking Jackson quizzed him because he’d seen him kiss his daughter. The message came through loud and clear, Don’t trifle with Missy if you’re not serious.

  “Law school, maybe an internship, decide whether to pursue politics or legal aid. Go for it.”

  He didn’t like the way Jackson’s eyes narrowed, as though he were considering how Missy would fit into his life. Something he hadn’t been willing to do himself.

  Fish shoved his chair back. He’d had enough of this conversation. “Thanks for the cake and ice cream.”

  He grinned at his family, glad they hadn’t bought their return tickets yet. Catch you all tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got an early cruise tomorrow.”

  The congratulations ran off his back. He listened for Missy’s voice, but didn’t hear it. As far as he knew, she was still combing Facebook for marriage prospects. He’d given up his right for it to piss him off, but it did.

  When he wasn’t looking, Missy had become the screen saver under his life. Maybe she always had been.

  His mind snaked back through all the time he’d spent with Missy in the past year. They’d never even gone on an official date. How could he when Missy practically demanded a guy have wedding vows memorized before she’d say yes.

  All her talk about dating Facebook guys, wanting sex, her smoking hot kisses…. She couldn’t have cinched him in any tighter if she’d launched an all-out campaign to bag him. But he knew, he knew, he knew Missy hadn’t plotted for him. She lived her life, went after what she wanted, tried to do things right.

  The hangup was his. He fought the “M” word as though it were a life sentence to the libertarian party. Cal could probably tell him why in five seconds. He knew Fish better than he knew himself.

  And maybe Cal needed his help to square things with Aly.

  Maybe Cal could tell him why forgiving was so damn hard.

  Cal wanted to go paint in the apartment in Mom’s dance studio where he’d been painting for the past month since he’d gotten out of jail. But Fish’s folks were sleeping in there for the foreseeable future, his siblings spilling out into the studio on sleeping bags and cots.

  He was too tired, too beaten down, after celebrating Missy and Fish’s graduation to set up at Henna’s.

  The whole evening had been torture, seeing Aly dressed up in a swishy teal skirt with a wide onyx belt. He felt outclassed in a polo and shorts, flip-flops, minus a college degree. She looked so beautiful. Between the Fishers and his family, there’d been no chance to tell Aly.

  He missed her. His schedule—morning stocking shelves at Winn Dixie, afternoons and early evenings doing tats at Stoney’s Ink Slab, Narcotics Anonymous, painting till he dropped—didn’t leave much room for seeing Aly. At least he was physically close to her part of each day; albeit when she was asleep. And he didn’t want to force her to make a decision about him before he had five more months of sobriety—ten total—and employment under his belt. If she had to decide now whether he was a good risk, he didn’t know what the answer would be.

  He yawned. A light glowed from inside Fish’s boat. If he had to beat forgiveness out of Fish, he would. But not tonight.

  He soft-shoed across the Escape’s deck out of habit so he wouldn’t wake Aly. Even Van Gogh had quit barking when he came in at night. It was only ten, but Aly had left his parents’ house over an hour ago. He eased the hatch open.

  A light glowed over the sink, the one Aly always left burning for him. The air conditioner hummed. Too tired to look to see if Aly was in her bunk, he pushed open the master suite door and halted.

  Aly sat on his bed, feet tucked under her, bathed in lamplight.

  He shook his head, wondering if he’d dreamed her here. Then, his eyes roamed over too much leg, the fortunate view down the sleeveless bone top she’d worn to graduation.

  “You look beautiful.”

  Aly startled and met his eyes. She scooted to the edge of the bunk and tugged her skirt into place. “I—I found the sketchpads when I washed your clothes the day before you got out of jail.”

  His gaze dropped to the notebooks he hadn’t noticed strewn over his rumpled quilt. “You washed my
clothes, too?” He felt knocked off balance.

  He gathered the pads, flipping the covers down over Aly in the back of the dinghy the day she talked him into turning himself in; Aly when he woke her up the night he got out of jail, Aly, tangled in her sheets as she slept one night last week. Embarrassment pricked the back of his neck. He crammed them into the bin she’d taken them from.

  Aly stood, arms folded. “What am I some kind of muse like Andrew Wyeth’s Helga?” She looked pensive, unsure.

  He reached out and closed his hand around her bare arm, needing to feel connected to her before the words tumbled out he couldn’t hold in.

  She didn’t move away. Her eyes peered into him.

  “I draw you because I love you. It’s a way to feel close to you.” He broke eye contact, too spent to face a negative reaction.

  “I love” –she hesitated, and his head jerked up— “the drawings. I got them out because I needed to believe you still cared about me. We’ve been so distant….”

  “I didn’t want to crowd you while I’m proving that I’ve changed.”

  Hurt flashed through her eyes. “Where do you go every night? Where do you sleep when you don’t sleep here?”

  “I thought you knew. I’ve been painting on those commissions you got me every night after Narcotics Anonymous—in the room off Mom’s studio. I fell asleep there a couple of times when I was too tired to drive home.”

  Her shoulders relaxed, and her expression cleared.

  His arms circled her loosely, giving her the option to step away. “I’m going to ask you to marry me—but I don’t want you to answer now—it’s too soon.”

  Aly’s eyes widened in surprise. “We’ve never talked about marriage.”

  “Where else could this go, Al? You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.” He leaned in to kiss her, watching her eyes dilate with emotion.

  Her breath shortened. Then she eased out of his grasp. “You’re different, Cal.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “In a good way or a bad way?”

  “A good way. But you’re right. I need more time.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, not sure whether or not that went well.

  Aly turned to go. She looked back at him. “Why did you go to Evie and not me when you wanted comfort after Raine dumped you?”

  So, that still bothered Aly. Cal nudged her chin up with two fingers. “Because I’d just been fired and dumped by Raine. I was messed up. Angry. I didn’t want to inflict that on you. You had your own drama going on.” He sighed. “I know it’s jacked, but in my screwed-up way, I was protecting you.”

  “And were you protecting me after you showed me your tattoo?”

  He sucked up the courage to say the words he didn’t want to say. “Not so much. I got a reminder text from my probation officer about a meeting I knew I couldn’t keep.”

  Aly stared at him, her eyes dissecting the part of him he least wanted her to see. “Good night.” She exited the cabin and closed the door softly behind her.

  He clenched his fists, everything in him wanted to give in to despair, to believe he’d never earn back Aly’s good opinion. He wanted to smoke, and make the feeling of loss go away. But Aly said he gave up too easily. And she was right.

  He’d given up every time she’d gotten a new boyfriend. He’d given up whenever the charter business took a bad turn. He’d given up and run. He’d given up when Aly didn’t visit him in jail.

  Five months and six days sober, and if Justin, his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, hadn’t watched him delete all his drug connections from his phone, he’d score weed in thirty seconds. Now it would probably take fifteen minutes. Instead, he punched in Justin’s speed dial number.

  Aly stared at the underside of the deck in the moonlight filtering through the porthole. Emotions careened through her as if she rode a carnival ride instead of a boat lazing in a summer night.

  Cal’s muffled voice filtered from the other end of the boat. She wondered who he was talking to. He was an addict, as he’d just reminded her. But for the first time, he was getting help and set his course to stay sober. He was right. They both needed more time to see if sobriety would stick.

  It wasn’t like she was flawless. There was a virginal standard she’d decimated a long, long time ago. She deserved herpes, a natural consequence of her behavior. And Cal was willing to accept her the way she was. She thrashed onto her other side.

  Van Gogh put his paws on the edge of her bunk and slurped her cheek as if to second Cal’s opinion.

  She pushed him down. “Eww.” But she smiled at the dog and wondered if he understood what was going on inside her.

  Cal’s running was the thing that ate at her. Even someone without her abandonment issues would think twice about committing to a man who had been willing to leave her forever. She rolled toward the hull, taking the sheet with her, as if she could escape the hurt.

  The sketch pads were all her and a few pelicans. Cal loved her, planned to propose. She curled around the warm glow in her stomach that somehow coexisted with her hurt and fear.

  Starr folded the last muumuu and laid it in the banana box with the others. It was past time for her to clean out Mama’s things. Jackson had offered to help her, but she didn’t need him hovering over her, expecting her to fall apart at any moment when the grief finally hit. It wasn’t going to hit.

  Cal needed some space to set up his easel and paints while the Fishers were in town. Missy treated Henna’s room like a shrine. It wasn’t healthy for a girl her age to focus on death. Starr would store everything in the shed. Leaf could decide what he wanted to keep—if and when he returned.

  Anger stabbed her. This was the story of her life—Leaf MIA, mired in a marijuana haze or physically missing. She kicked the box and it slammed into the bed. Jackson was wrong. There was no point in letting yourself feel. She rubbed her bare foot.

  She turned to Henna’s dresser. Maybe there was something small, a piece of jewelry, that she could keep to remember Henna by. She flipped open the Romeo Y Julieta cigar box that had set on Henna’s dresser for as long as she could remember.

  Instead of jewelry, she pulled out a sealed envelope with Starr scrawled across it in Henna’s spidery writing.

  Her heart knocked in her chest. Maybe Henna said something in this letter that would somehow fix her childhood. That she was sorry she’d been such an uninvolved mother. Sorry everything, including, marijuana, came before Starr. Just sorry. Even an acknowledgement that Starr’s childhood had been difficult would be enough.

  The long, white envelope shook in her hands. She should go get a knife from the kitchen to preserve Mama’s handwriting. Like she had an ounce of sentimentality about Mama. She tore open the envelope. The rip severed Starr’s name.

  She sunk onto the tie-dyed bedspread and unfolded the single sheet.

  Starry Starry Bright, Henna had written in the upper left corner. The annoying nickname grated across Starr’s nerves. Her eyes skimmed down the page and she put a hand out on the nubby bedspread to steady herself.

  Finally, Henna had given her something that mattered.

  Chapter 27

  July 1

  Sometimes art sends you a different message than life does. What to believe? The beauty that exudes from a work and makes your heart hope? Or the bleakness of your personal reality? Perhaps the purpose of transcendent art is to foster hope where there is none.

  Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  The box air conditioner in Henna’s room kicked on as Cal dabbed his brush to a river scape of JB’s Fish Camp. Of all the hours of the day, night was the time he felt the most peace. Even at Henna’s.

  Painting at Henna’s and facing her absence had been bittersweet. He found comfort he hadn’t expected just coexisting with the thousands of memories crammed into her house.

  The door knocked open and bumped against the wall. Starr dropped a box of paint rags on the floor next to his easel. “Brought these from the shed. We had boxe
d them up when Missy moved in.”

  She looked at each painting he had stacked around the room, commented on line or color, sometimes mood. “Why so many paintings of local businesses?”

  “Aly got the commissions for me. I need to ask her if she wants me to deliver them or if she’s planning on it.”

  “How much are you getting from each painting?”

  “Five hundred.”

  Mom’s mouth dropped open. “Wow, Cal. You’ve got five thousand dollars sitting in this room. Make sure you and Missy lock up.” She dropped to the edge of the bed. The baggy shorts and canary yellow T-shirt couldn’t hide her dancer’s grace. Maybe some day he’d paint her—some day when he didn’t mind thinking about how small she made him feel.

  Mom looked bemused. “You’re making real money with your art now.”

  “Shocking, I know. It’s because of Aly.”

  “How are things between you two?”

  He shrugged and faced the painting.

  “You should tell her the truth like you should have told me.”

  He whipped his face toward Mom.

  Her eyes bore into him. “I found a letter from Henna today. Why did you let me go on thinking you were guilty?”

  His heart stuttered. “Because I was.” The uselessness of ever pleasing Mom washed over him. Why sugarcoat the truth? “Maybe I’d never carry a Winn Dixie bag full of weed for myself, but I smoked. A lot.” He sank to the stool, his shoulders weighed down.

  Mom waited as though she needed to hear more.

  “I ran a delivery from Henna’s to Leaf’s hotdog stand like I had plenty of times. Everybody does errands for their grandparents. No big deal.”

  “Everybody’s grandparents don’t ask them to run drugs.”

  “Do you really think I could send up Henna and Leaf?”

  Mom leaned toward him. “You could have told me so I didn’t think the worst of you.”

  “You always think the worst of me.”

  Mom clutched her stomach. “I deserved that. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I read Henna’s letter.” She sighed. “How do I say I’m sorry for a lifetime of criticizing you?”