7. August
The screen door clicks closed behind my mom, who carries grocery bags in her hands and her portfolio under her arm. Her brown hair is in a loose bun on top of her head and her navy skirt hangs to the floor. Tiny always says my mom’s style is Titanic artsy, but all I think when she says that is how she resembles a doomed ship headed for an iceberg.
“I have such a good feeling about that new gallery director, August,” Mom says with an extra dose of enthusiasm, dropping everything on the kitchen table with a thunk. “I think it’s going to be my lucky break.”
Except luck and my mother don’t mix. “What about the Gibbonses’ porch, Mom? Do you think Mr. Gibbons will hire you to paint it?”
“I mean, you should have seen the way the gallery director pored over my work, honey. She wasn’t at all like that last one, you know, the guy with the long earlobes who was always frowning? This woman had...” She twirls, her long skirt flaring. “Pizzazz.”
I lean back against the counter. “Mom.”
“This could change everything for us,” she says. “You’ll see.”
I glance at the stack of delinquent bills wedged behind the sugar jar on the counter and rub my neck. Getting mad is pointless. About a year ago I yelled at her to grow up. But it changed exactly nothing. Des used to say that our mom was an innocent, an artist born in a time when she couldn’t be herself, which was sort of okay when we were managing to scrape by, but after Des died and the funeral bills piled up, we got so far in the hole that her on-again, off-again work schedule didn’t cut it.
The screen door creaks open.
“Oh, there she is,” Mom says, clasping her hands together. “And pretty as a rose in that pink dress. Valentine, you could be a painting.”
“Thanks, Ruth.” Tiny beams. She’s always loved my mom. Everyone loves my mom.
“You should paint her, August, exactly like this, something to commemorate your childhoods together before going off to college,” Mom says, pulling open a grocery bag.
I internally wince.
“You’re just so talented,” she continues. “And it’s been much too long since you’ve picked up a brush. Your dad said the same thing when I spoke to him last week.”
My dad—the one member of this family (if you can call him that) who actually has money but is absolutely no help. When I was younger, I overheard Mom and Des stressing about bills in the kitchen, and I ran for the phone thinking he’d want to know we were struggling and that I’d ask him to pitch in, to which he told me to put my mom on and then didn’t call back for four months. I haven’t asked him for a single thing since. Which seems to work for him because he only calls twice a year, my birthday and Christmas, asks how I’m doing in school, and then makes some excuse to go. And since it’s neither of those holidays, I can’t imagine why she was talking to him. But I’m also not going to ask.
“Drop it, Mom,” I say with a controlled tone.
“Even just a quick sketch. Something to get those creative juices going.”
I look out the window, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest, afraid that if I show her how much her comments bother me, it’ll be a backhanded admission that I need art. That she’ll somehow see that it keeps cropping up in my thoughts even though I’ve sworn off it. That two times this week my brain betrayed me with a sketch. The realization unsettles me; it’s never happened consistently like this before.
When I don’t respond, my mom looks up from her groceries.
Thankfully Tiny jumps in. “You know me—I can barely sit still for five minutes. I’d never make it through a portrait.”
“Mom, Tiny and I are going out. Call Mr. Gibbons,” I say, leaving no space for her to continue.
“They’re redoing their porch, right?” Tiny says because our town is that kind of small. “My mom said the Hershwicks are building a sunroom, too. They might have some painting work if you’re looking.”
I glance at Tiny, grateful for the tip and the change of subject.
“Sunrooms are the best rooms,” Mom says. “They heal the soul. How I’d love to have a sunroom to paint in.”
“Mom,” I say again.
She smiles a tired smile. “I’ll call, honey. Stop worrying.” Then she sets herself to unpacking the groceries and humming, probably thinking about the sunroom we’ll never have.