The Gift From Adelaide

When I get back to the villa, I go upstairs and put the package on my bed. It is wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and the string has knots in it. In order to open the package, I will have to either untie the knots or cut the string, and I'm guessing I will have to cut it because the knots look tight.

Stanley would probably not untie the package and he probably wouldn't cut the string. He would stand in front of the package and stay afraid of it until his landlady carried it away.

I go down to the kitchen to look for scissors, and when I find them I come back upstairs and take a deep breath. Then I cut the string. The paper does not fall away on its own. I have to unfold it from the corners and then pull it to the side, and while I am doing this it makes crackling noises that sound dangerous.

Inside the package I find a large canvas frame and lying against it is the picture of clouds that Adelaide and I drew. I remove the drawing and see that there is something painted on the canvas itself. I look at the painting. It is a painting of me. It is a painting of me with a bicycle. A white bicycle. I think it is done in acrylic wash, just like the paintings on Adeleide's livingroom walls. The colours look as if they are closed around so much light that the image seems to move as I look at it. I am not riding the bicycle. But I am not carrying it either. It looks as if perhaps I am in between riding and carrying, undecided.

I wonder what Adelaide meant about carrying her age. I wonder what she meant when she said that most people carry something. Did she know that I sometimes carry the white bicycle, like when I am in the woods and the trail makes riding too difficult? Did she guess that I carry other things as well, just as she carries her age—and that we all carry something?

All the answers to these questions are inside Adelaide but Adelaide is not here any more and so I cannot ask her. Adelaide is gone, taking everything inside of her. Where did Adelaide go? I ask myself this question over and over. I know that she is dead. But where did she go? This question repeats itself over and over in my brain until all the consonants disappear.