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 boxed 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?”
“You already apologized that day you barged into my New Year’s hangover. Nobody’s perfect. I know that more than anybody.”
She patted her stick-straight hair that she’d started wearing down on her shoulders. “I told you stories from my childhood when I visited you in jail, hoping you’d understand what shaped me—why I was so hard on you. So you would forgive me. I thought I was being a better parent than my folks were, but I just screwed up in a different way.”
“I forgave you the first time you asked. I have too much of my own shit to worry about grudges.” But after he said the words, he wondered if they were true. Wasn’t he still expecting the worst from her? His mind flashed to Fish, and he understood how hard it was to forgive.
When he was a kid Mom would have washed his mouth out with soap for using shit. But her gaze held only fragile hope, as though his forgiveness were the most important thing in the world.
She ran a knuckle under one eye, and he realized he’d never seen her cry. “Thanks.” She took a deep breath and let it go. “Going to jail for my parents was a noble thing. I doubt I could have done it without blabbing to anyone who would listen.” She picked at the hem of her bright T-shirt and looked up at him. “I’m proud of you.” Her eyes glistened in the light from the spot he had trained on his canvas.
Mom stood. “Can I hug you?” She wrapped arms around him that felt like angles and planes. “I’m going to hug you every time I see you.”
Cal laughed. Forgiveness, the reality rather than the words, bubbled up in him. “Okay, Mom. Whatever.” And he was going to be on the cover of People magazine.
But he felt hugged, none the less.
He’d always performed below average on the standardized test of life. Mom was perfect, he was the failure. But the truth that Mom had been over-critical twisted inside him like a kaleidoscope, changing the landscape of who he was.
For the first time, the question at the bottom of his being, did he have what it took, came back yes.
A hand clamped onto Cal’s bicep, and he took his eyes off his niece and nephew playing a pre-school version of Frisbee beside the river.
Aly’s eyes spit fire at him. “We’re going to talk. Now.”
“Well, okay then.” He waved at Kallie to let her know he was signing off Frisbee rescuing for Jillian and Chase. “Kids, I need to talk to Aunt Aly. Go play near your Mom for a sec.”
Aly marched him along the river away from the Edgewater Fourth of July celebration with an iron grip on his arm. She halted and dropped her hand.
He squinted at her in the afternoon sun. Dread and anticipation churned in his gut.
“Just when were you going to tell me you went to jail for your grandparents?”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“You told your mother, and you didn’t tell me. I thought we were friends. I thought we didn’t have any secrets. You even know I have herpes.” Her eyes pooled with hurt and passion.
“Henna left Mom a letter. I didn’t see the point in telling anyone. Look, it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal.”
Sun caught the water still clinging to the tops of Cal’s toes. “They laugh at me at Narcotics Anonymous and say there’s no such thing as marijuana addiction, but when I couldn’t deal with life, I smoked. A lot.”
He looked up at her. “I smoked everyday during our disconnected years, a lot of days, multiple times.”
He glanced across the river and back at Aly. “I tried to quit when I got out of jail the first time, but I couldn’t do it without NA. I’m no saint.”
Aly’s fingertips touched his forearm. “But you were a hero to Henna and Leaf. You didn’t even try to implicate them. All it would have taken was one police officer to take you seriously and search Henna’s house.”
A lump formed in his throat.
Aly’s fingers whispered against his skin, then tucked into the pockets of her shorts. “If you’d been stopped with your own weed, the amount would barely have earned you probation. But you did jail time without complaint to keep your grandparents out of trouble. You’re a hero to me.”
The lump grew and he tried to swallow around it. His gaze locked with hers. A fish jumped in the water behind Aly. Breeze ruffled her hair. “Thanks for that.”
She gave him a shaky smile.
Behind her, the river ran with hope.
Fish knocked on Henna’s door. Music pulsed out. Grateful Dead. Missy must be sending up Henna.
He and Missy hadn’t communicated—other than his graduation kiss—since Henna’s funeral three months ago. Yeah, he’d decided to stop things, but Missy hadn’t contacted him either. It was weird. Before the funeral they’d texted daily, e-mailed, talked on the phone, grabbed coffee.
Since his family had been in town, they’d run into each other a few times at barbeques, and such. It rankled that Chas always seemed to be hovering around Missy. But if he wasn’t willing to pull the trigger on marriage, he couldn’t blame Chas for going after Missy.
And he hadn’t made any progress working through the idea of marrying Missy. Between working and spending every spare second with his family, he hadn’t even had time to sign up for law school classes yet.
He hated the thought that out of neglect he’d done something to piss her off or hurt her. He knocked again.
He fingered the small Killman Jewelry box in his pocket. He wasn’t screwing up her birthday this year. He rapped his knuckles on the door jamb harder this time.
She had the music turned up too loud to hear him knock.
He’d been inside Henna’s house dozens of times when Cal lived here. He tried the door knob. It twisted in his palm. He shrugged. At most he’d startle Missy. When he’d texted her yesterday that he’d stop by today, she’d answered K.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Missy!”
No answer.
He shut the door and started across the living room.
The bathroom door opened, and Missy halted, framed in the hall, wearing a towel turbaned on her head—and nothing else.