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I look out the windshield, and I think of when I broke the easel. All that anger I felt. Heat.
Now I feel nothing.
I decide to leave, but almost hit another car on my way out of the deck. So I go back. I pull into the same spot and get back out. As if moving might help ease the throbbing wound inside me.
All this time, I thought that it would peter out. That I’d finish the mural and…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t believe that it would really end. That seems to be the only explanation for my...blindness.
I walk back into my atrium, and numbness simmers. Now it’s hurt. Betrayal. I feel envious even of Pearl. He’ll replace me, but she’ll always have him. Like one of those psychos from the stalker movies, I tell myself harshly, as I thrust my shaking hands under the water in the men’s room. Those ones who fall in love with someone through the window glass. What are you, a step or two away from that? It was always more you and less him. What did you want? Someone to pick you? Did you want Daddy to pick Vance?
I splash my face. I understand—the facts are here, and they are easy to interpret—but my mind just can’t believe it. What did you think, asshat? That he lost his phone in Ottawa?
I thought he had lost his phone. It seemed to be the only explanation for such a long silence.
Sometime after dark, I end up in the room with centaur. He’s so beautiful. By far the best piece that I’ve ever made.
I know what I’m going to do—and it’s so strange the way I love how much I hate it.
There’s a grinder here. A long extension cord. I unravel it methodically, with steady hands. Then I turn the grinder on, and start with centaur’s head. Once his head is gone, the rest will feel easy. I’ve spent so long looking at his face—it’s like an old friend. Once that’s gone, a weird, tight pressure fills my chest. If I take shallow breaths, I can still breathe. I stop for a second. Gotta get a facemask. I only have the one, though. It’s the mask he wore. It’s at the townhouse. I take my shirt off and tie it around my head.
I remove the neck and shoulders next. His legs…his hips…his flank. I don’t realize I’m crying until I stop because my shirt is wet enough to sag. Finally there’s just a tail left. I wipe my eyes, and then I finish it.
It’s daylight again in the atrium when I start the next part of my project. It’s complex, a slight challenge—but I see it so clearly. I’m so good at marble. Really, it’s my gift. People still hire me for murals, but I’ve got a wait list four years out for sculptures.
I do the beach first…then the sea: a wild and reckless sea with gorgeous, curling waves. I give the island trees, a clearing. Then I start the boat. There’s just one piece of hull…a mast and crumpled sails. I know the sails are flawless even as my hands begin to shake and my throat gets so dry breathing makes me choke. All the wreckage next. So many splintered boards. There are mangled railings, part of the couch-like thing where we sat and smoked. When everything is finished—all the wreckage, anyway—I lay the steering wheel just so in the sand. Then I get the grinder out again…then the hammer…and the medium flat chisel. Mini chisels. With one of them, I give it a title between underbrush, between two palm trees. Worship.
“Sir?”
I turn to see a man in a suit standing in the doorway.
“Do you have clearance to be in here?”
I blink, near shocked to find it’s dark outside the atrium’s windows.
I look back at the man and tell him, “I’m the artist.”
He steps closer. “I’m Howard. One of the church elders.”
I can’t bring myself to speak or even nod.
“This has changed since I was here last,” he says, coming closer still. “The last piece was a stunner. What you have here now is maybe even more special.”
I see a spot I don’t like and start at it with a point chisel.
“Do you need something? A glass of water?”
I look at him. His eyes look like…something.
“No.” I step away. “No thank you.”
With the chisel in my hand, I walk toward the nearest men’s room—but I don’t stop. I go to my atrium. It’s empty. I can smell the roses. I think of the port-a-room outside in the walled garden, and my throat closes.
I know where he is if he’s here. I know where the stairwell is—the one they led him up after he said in fifth grade that he planned to marry one of his male friends and not the boy’s twin sister. It feels right for me to go up those stairs.
