Page 65 - WTP Vol. X #2

convertible with its mint sheen that Alfred loved, Leslie had crawled onto the road. Christian, knifed up against the dashboard, was bloody and inert. Vic whispered “Leslie,” annoyed at herself for speaking his lover’s name. “It should have been you.”
“Alright there?” Grace asked, circling back for a mo- ment.
Vic nodded without looking up. Christian had taken a photo of Leslie’s abstract “art” with their camera. A puffery of yellow and teal, a tilted red plank in the middle. “How daring,” Vic had sniped to Grace. “A soft impression, nothing deeply conceived.”
Vic threw one of Christian’s sticks into a tin barrel. The sound ricocheted sharply in the barn. Grace jumped. She stood up and twisted an iron rod that opened the rafter windows. “We need some fresh air in here. Sit down, Vic.”
Grace placed her warm fingers on her friend’s upper back. “God, you are tight.”
As Grace’s hands worked in steady circles, deepening into muscle, Vic felt with certainty, once again, that Christian wanted to hit that stand of trees. “Painting is not difficult,” he had told a reviewer once. “The hard part for me is what to do when I’m not.” Suicide fixed that trap. Try as she might, Vic knew that she could not have saved him.
Vic pressed Grace’s warm hands. “Thanks. Let’s get back at it.” With a screwdriver, Vic pried hardened blots of blue from the floor.
Grace held two large bristle brushes over a can of house paint. “Why don’t we repaint these floor- boards white? It would be a fresh start.”
Vic took the brush. “Wouldn’t that have been choice and cozy? The three of us living here as Christian suggested. Me, the mommy. Leslie, the lover. And our boy.”
“He wasn’t himself then.” Grace’s voice lowered. “Maybe that’s the thing you need to paint.”
“Are you giving me an assignment?” Vic’s voice be- came defiant.
“Take it if you want it. The floor can wait.” Grace handed Vic a cold sandwich that she had packed in New York. “Eat up. I’m going to tackle the thickets outside and dream up a new vessel that can stand beside your boulders. Maybe it won’t have an open-
“Alfred, Christian, male collectors and art-
ists, galleries that rarely showed women paint- ers, museums that never bought their work. Blue Hell stirred up the frayed circles of connection that had defined her life. “
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