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He takes his seat, leaning back in the chair. “Under normal circumstances, it would be possible to scrape the paint off with a razor. But the glass in this house is meant to withstand hurricane-force winds. It has to be cleaned with a solution instead.”
I choose a brush. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.”
“You should have done whatever the hell you wanted to do. And that was what you wanted.”
A fresh canvas waits at my easel. That’s where I go with my palette and my paints and my brush.
We square off with each other. The canvas, waiting. Me, adjusting my body until I’m in the right position. There’s a kind of energy I’m looking for, I guess. Weird as that sounds. It never takes long to find it. Even with Emerson in the room. He’s not disruptive to the process.
It’s as comfortable as being alone, actually.
And it feels good to give this to him. He wants it, and it’s within my power. He wants to see what it’s really like when I paint.
This is it. It’s as real as the hours I spent in my little apartment, or in the studio as Leo’s house. I washed this canvas in white yesterday, so I don’t have to wait.
I start with Prussian blue. The color on the canvas is also the color of authenticity. It sounds a little out there, even in my head. Well, it’s true. Emerson would be here even if he wasn’t in the room. I’m thinking of him on the waves with his surfboard.
Starting the piece feels good. My thoughts float to the place where the brush kisses canvas, separated from it only by the paint. I fall into it right away.
What does it mean if painting in front of him doesn’t change anything?
It does change some things, obviously. I can feel the heat of him in the room. His gaze on my skin. The fundamental act isn’t altered. The same movements come to my wrists, my fingertips. The sensation of being connected to the work by a bright line is unchanged.
It feels…
Safe.
A few minutes pass. Maybe ten. I’m not sure. I never pay much attention to time when I’m painting.
“The panic attacks started because of my father,” Emerson says.
Something in me answers to the sound of his voice. I can’t explain it. I’m not startled. It’s like he’s been speaking to me all this time. Communicating, even in silence. “Is that what Sin meant?”
I keep my focus on the painting because I know that’s what he wants. I can taste in the air how important it is to handle this gracefully. Whatever he’s about to tell me. Guilt pinches my stomach. I wasn’t graceful about it with Leo. I can’t go back and do it again, but I can get this right.
“That’s what he meant.”
He’s quiet for another stretch of time. A wave blooms on the canvas. The edge of a surfboard. Emerson’s in the painting now. The suggestion of him, anyway. I haven’t started the detail work.
“You could tell me about him, you know. I—” The board balances on the waves. When it has its rider, he’ll be tall and strong, steady above the swells. “I want to know everything about you. Everything you want to tell me.” The surfer in the painting isn’t afraid. His mind is occupied by the movement of his body. He’s a reflection of Emerson as he is now, in the room with me. He’s not afraid, either. Nervous, I think. A little wary. But not afraid. Not panicked, either. The difference between fear and panic is the difference between a teaspoon and the ocean.
“He was violent. Consumed with control. We were too wild for him.”
I try to imagine Emerson like one of my brothers. When I was very young, they were wild. Running through the house. Avoiding my father. I can’t quite picture Emerson acting that way. “But you weren’t, though. Were you?”
“No.” He makes a sound that’s close to a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That didn’t matter. His perception was all that counted. His mood.”
We’re getting closer to the dark heart at the center of this. To the truth Emerson’s hidden. To the core of his panic. I keep painting. Keep my breath steady. I will my heart not to race.
“He would beat the shit out of us,” Emerson says. “And when he was done with that, he would lock us in the closet.”
My brush skips on the canvas. Guilt stings my throat, my eyes. I said that to him the first night I was here. I asked him if he was going to do that to me. I threw it in his face.
For the love of Christ, little painter, I will never lock you—
Pain in his eyes. I was too scared, too wrapped up in myself to see it.
I will never lock you in the closet.
