Wish You Weren't Here

Chapter 63

Ava

I’ve been in this storage container for well over three hours, and there are still dozens of paintings to unwrap. Every time I move from the swivel chair that the man at the front desk rolled out to me when he saw me sitting crisscross applesauce on the cement, a small tornado of dust swirls in the air above me in the glow of the single light bulb. The musky scent of things left too long in darkness still pervades the space despite the fact that I have the red garage door pulled all the way up on its track to let in as much natural light as I can. Every time my fingers peel back the edges of the butcher paper to reveal my mother’s work, a mixture of grief, guilt, and awe sweep over me, and I force myself to remember that we all heal at different times. It might have been a crime to keep these paintings locked up, but now I’m ready to get them out into the light.

I glance at the first row leaning to my left. This pile is for my dad. Sweeping landscapes of the places they traveled together, portraits of me and him that I can remember complaining about and squirming away from while she laughed at my impatience, and beautiful still moments of our family home, painted in a way that makes me think she dipped her brush in love and caressed the canvas while she created them. There isn’t a question that they belong with him.

Pile two is for Urbino and Alessandro. This pile might be the most difficult for me to part with, but there are so many paintings filled with the essence of Italy that it feels wrong for them to exist anywhere else. Each person who touched her life—and my life—will receive one, and this feels like the least I can do after they opened their arms to me without hesitation. My heart aches with every painting I stack atop this pile, but when I unwrap the piece that I know immediately belongs to James, that ache cascades out of my heart and into my chest like rapids after a dam release.

It’s the perfect complement to the painting of Urbino that hangs in his kitchen. The point of view is identical, the angles exactly the same, but where the sky was an eggplant-colored bruise, now it bursts with the brightest cerulean blue. And where the ground was shrouded in snow and the stones looked gray rising from it, now an emerald green covers every inch of the earth and the stone is the softest pink, the same color I touched my first time in town when I ran my hand along that archway. Urbino Under Sun. I can see it hanging directly across from his Nonna’s counterpart in his apartment, that space that made me feel like I was drowning in him.

I run my finger over the soft brushstrokes and imagine that James can feel my fingers wherever he is, then I place it in the Italy stack and shove all that pain back into its bottle and pick up the next painting.

My fingers slip under the brown paper, and I gently peel back the edges, exposing my mother’s soft wide strokes underneath. Immediately, I recognize the familiar rise and fall of Urbino’s twin towers painted from the main entrance of town, the angle from below instead of from the hills beyond. But in the center of the towering fortress there is a woman standing beneath the arch, staring up into the city. She’s just a silhouette, made of dark lines and shadow, but I know with every inch of reason I possess that she is me—that my mother painted her final wishes—her dream for me to experience what she did.

Ava and Urbino.

Her beautiful curving title confirms what I already knew, and a shiny splatter appears on the bottom corner of the painting. I lift the painting into the light, knowing that it will go in the pile to the right. My pile—the paintings that will go where I go.

When I go to stack it against the others, my eye catches on a white square taped to the back of the canvas, and I place the painting face down into my lap. The exact postcard she gave me to fill stares up at me, with the image of Urbino that is more familiar than my own reflection. I peel the tape carefully and turn the cardstock over. On the back, my mother’s handwriting fills every square inch and my eyes sweep greedily over her words:

My Ava,

I’ve had this dream for you since I found out you were growing inside of me. Now as I paint it, I realize that this painting might be the only way I’ll get to witness you visiting the place I loved so much. And I need you to know that I’m okay with that.

The lives—yes, lives plural—that I lived were a gift I could have never asked for. Finding Italy, finding my second family and friends there, then finding my art andmyself—that life was never part of the plan. But somehow, I was lucky enough for all of that to find me. And the beauty that came with it—well, words were never my strength. That’s why I paint.

My second life, though, Ava. The one that came with remission and meeting your father and having you, my sweet, stubborn girl—that life blew me away. It humbled me and inspired me. The joy and the satisfaction that you could give me with just the smallest giggle—a million days in Italy couldn’t compare to that sound. You were the dream I never dreamed of, my love. The dream I could never have imagined for myself.

When you look at this painting, Ava, I want you to dream beyond your plans. Beyond the limits of my imagination. Say yes to it all. And always say yes to love. You just never know what life will give you when you let it.

Always with you,

Mom

I put my hand over her words and shut my eyes, then make another promise to my mother.