Chapter Thirty-One
Outside, the scent of flowers in full bloom and cut grass is carried on a gossamer light breeze. Walking through the formal
gardens, I see Megan underneath one of the huge cedar trees engrossed in her sketchbook, lying on her stomach, her bare feet
kicking in the air.
On the crest of a gently sloping hill that’s away from the neatly cut lawns of the castle I see Forrest, an easel set up in
front of him. I watch him for a moment dipping in and out of view as he paints.
Curiosity points me in his direction and sets my feet in motion.
On the way I meet Artie and her aunt, sprawled out on a blanket.
“Hi.” River waves at me, lying on her back, with her hands cradling her head. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I say, pausing to look at Artie’s drawings, dozens of them performed with exuberant joy and a host of coloured
pencils that are scattered all around her.
“Wow, Artie,” I say. “You are such a talented artist.”
“Thank you, I know,” Artie says, not looking up from her work. “When I’m finished I will show you all my drawings and we can
talk about them.”
“I’m really looking forward to that,” I tell her, turning towards where Forrest is painting.
“Go take a look. He won’t mind,” River says, lifting her shades to make eye contact. “In fact, I feel like he would actually
welcome it. I’ve heard a lot about you since I arrived.”
“Not sure that’s a good thing,” I say, watching him.
“The thing about my brother is, he always thinks everything is good, even when it’s hard. He’s the world’s most optimistic
man. It drives me mad.”
“Well, I might just go and take a look, you know, in passing, whilst I am out on my planned walk.”
Before I know it, I’m standing next to Forrest, looking at his canvas. I expected it to be something “arty,” you know, abstract
expressionism or something that is hard to understand, but it’s actually incredibly beautiful in the most unexpected way.
On one level, it is just the portrait of the castle on a warm summer’s day, but somehow, it’s also so much more than that.
Not only has he conjured the heat in the air and the weight of history on the building, the strange otherness of it, in a
world where schoolkids have to spend the night alone because their dad’s at work and he can’t afford to lose his job. It’s
sort of like magic, I guess. I stare and stare at it, trying to figure how he’s woven all of that into a flat image made up
of dabs of colour.
Eventually Forrest pauses. I notice the paint smudge on the tips of his fingers and on the inside of his wrist. I wonder what
it’s like to push your fingertips into the fat blobs of oil paint and smear it on skin.
“Want to try?” he suggests lightly.
“Um . . . what?” I ask.
“Painting.” He chuckles, offering me the handle of a brush.
“Oh, no.” I shake my head. “I’d mess it all up for you.”
“I mean on your own canvas,” he says. He bends down, and I get a glimpse of the tanned, toned skin under the hem of his T-shirt
and notice the way his muscular backside looks in those jeans. It looks okay, I guess, like the sculpture of the Venus de
Milo is fine, and Pedro Pascal is perfectly okay.
“Here, take it,” he says, presenting me with a small, square canvas. I stare at it as if it might be ticking.
“Um, I wouldn’t know where to start,” I say. “I haven’t done art since I was in school, and even then, my teacher told me
I was so bad at it that it offended his eyes.”
“Then your teacher was very bad at his job. It’s not true. No one is bad at art, art is what makes us human.” A gentle smile
plays on his lips. Fascinated and scared at the same time, I watch as he squeezes swirls of different coloured paints onto
a fresh palette and presents me with a bouquet of brushes. “You have designed some of the most advanced technology in the
world. That all began with an idea and having the courage to try. So just try, why not?”
He raises one dark eyebrow in challenge. He knows I can’t back out, dammit.
Taking the canvas, I sit down crossed-legged and rest it on the grass, looking at the scene before me: the beautiful symmetry
of the castle, the bottomless blue sky, the rich green grass. It’s lovely, but that’s not what I’m feeling in this moment.
It’s the deep longing for that delicate memory of my mum, and that almost faded sense of what it was like to be loved by her
and to love her with all my heart that is wrapped all around me.
I’m not even really thinking or looking when I pick up a brush and dip it into the paint.
I’m just feeling, and everything I’m feeling is finding its way onto the canvas somehow.
The way the brush slides and catches is soothing, and how the colours sing and blend gives me a sense of satisfaction that I don’t think I’ve felt since the early days designing FreeThought.
So, when just thirty minutes later I put down my brush and see a canvas full of yellow spirals of many different shades, each
one interlocking, I don’t really know how it got there, only that this is the best I can do to describe what it feels like
to miss a woman I barely knew with all of my heart.
At some point during the last few minutes Forrest sat down on the grass next to me, watching silently over my shoulder. When
I turn to look at him, I see tears in his eyes. His hand reaches for mine, and I let him take it.
“That’s beautiful.” His voice is almost a whisper.
“It is?” I ask him. The sensation of a single tear tracking down my cheek makes its way to my jaw. Forrest catches it with
the ball of his thumb.
“You know it is,” he says. “It’s moved you to tears too, see?”
Something so unexpected is happening here, and it has got nothing to do with art or even attraction, it’s something much deeper
than that. Something between Forrest and me has made contact and joined. I’m not sure I understand what it is; it almost feels
as if it has nothing to do with me or him. It’s just that in the last few minutes the world and everything in it changed,
just a little, because now we really see one another.
“Tell me about it,” Forrest says, his eyes lingering on the horizon, and I know he feels the connection too.
“It’s about my mum,” I say, looking past my canvas and to the castle.
“I don’t know much about her, but she was a bit of a wild spirit, I think, ran away from home when she was Megan’s age.
Got pregnant with me when she wasn’t much older.
I was taken into care when I was three. Mum died not long after. ”
“God, Ava,” Forrest says.
“Susie, that was her name, she did her best, you know, and she loved me. But she had addiction problems, mental health problems.
It was a struggle for her to stay alive every day, at least that’s what they told me years later. I don’t remember much but”—I
look at my painting—“I remember that feeling.”
Forrest nods. “Maybe your head doesn’t remember everything, but your body does, and your heart. The good and the bad. Every
minute you had with your mum is locked away in here.” He hovers his fingertips over where my heart is beating. “Art is a great
way to access those feelings in a safe way.”
“I hardly knew her,” I say, pushing the feeling of longing for her way into the box I made for it when I was a child. “I’ve
been alive a lot longer without her in my life than with her. And yet . . . I miss her.”
“It doesn’t matter how the connection you have to her is measured, whether it’s in years or seconds. It’s still real. That’s
what love is, it’s a connection of souls.”
Our eyes meet, and this time neither of us looks away. Instead, I feel my torso moving a little closer to his, drawn in by
something I don’t understand. Then I realise my hand is still in his. None of this is right, and yet it feels right. But what
about Hal, Hal who is made just for me? Feeling disloyal, I gently pull my hand from his, shifting slightly to put a more
comfortable distance between us.
“What’s yours?” I ask, before I understand myself exactly what I’m asking.
“Oh, it’s just the house,” he says, looking at his canvas. “Chocolate box art.”
“It’s not that, but that’s not what I mean. I mean what’s your memory? That feeling or memory that made you who you are? I
think I see it in your expression sometimes, when you think no one is looking.”
Forrest drops his head, his hair falling over his eyes.
“Not sadness,” he says. “It’s not that, more gratitude. Gratitude for Gem, that I got to be there while she was alive in this
world, and that my daughter is her daughter. I’ve grieved her, of course, part of me always will. But now my memory of her
is one of such . . . gratitude.” He chuckles. “I’m an emotional man. River says I’m a hot mess, but I am a crier, I can’t
help it. Movies, books, music, Megan’s poem. My Artie, I do all this for her. So that when she grows up there will still be
a world made for people like her.”
“I get it,” I tell him. “I admit that when we first met, I did not get it. But then I didn’t realise how much we had . . .
our disciplines . . . have in common. We both want a better world for Artie and her generation. So, yeah, I get it. I’m sorry
about the nemesis thing.”
“Don’t be,” he says, smiling broadly. “You had your reasons.”
“Daddy!” Artie hollers from down the hill, her arms full of drawings. “I have great works of art to wow you with!”
“I hope she never loses that confidence,” I say, with a laugh.
“She won’t, not if her family has anything to do with it,” Forrest tells me, and Artie makes her way towards us, stopping every few steps to retrieve a stray piece of paper, dropping another in the process.
“Family is good,” I say. “Rani is my family, and I accidentally upset her this morning, and now I don’t know what to do about
it.”
This confession startles me. I haven’t shared a problem with anyone but Rani and FreeThought in just about forever.
Forrest is about to say something when we see Hal approaching up the hill. He’s carrying a picnic hamper. When he reaches
Artie, he sets it down and begins to help her pick up her drawings.
“That guy is really wooing you,” Forrest says, sitting back on his heels, his expression unreadable.
“He really is.” I smile. “He is a very nice man.”
“And you like him too, don’t you?” he asks.
How to answer that question when the very reason Hal exists is because of me. Of course I like him, I love him in many ways.
But even if I didn’t I think I’d feel obliged to.
“I . . . do,” I say. Forrest nods.
“Ava, I’m sorry for how I hurt you. Even if it was never my intention, the thought that you felt that way about me for so
long makes me feel dreadful.”
“Apology accepted,” I say with a rueful smile.
“So, just for clarification, I am off the nemesis list, right?” he asks.
“I mean, I’ve never rescinded nemesis status ever, but I think for you, I might make an exception.”
“Well, that’s a start,” he says, getting up. He starts to put away his supplies as Hal approaches.
“Picnic?” Hal suggests.
“Drawings of greatness!” Artie announces.
“Lovely,” I say.
A start, Forrest said. What does that mean?
“Come on, Artemisia, how about we hang these in the dining room for everyone to admire later,” Forrest says, taking the stray
sheets of paper from Hal. “That way, Ava can see them to their best advantage.”
“Oh.” Artie looks disgruntled. “But there’s a picnic here, Daddy.”
“Yes, a picnic meant for two,” Forrest says. “Come on, I’m sure we can rustle up a picnic too.”
“Bye, Ava! Bye, Hal!” Artie calls to us as Forrest leads her back down the hill.
“Bye, Artie,” Hal and I call.
“Oh, and when it comes to Rani,” Forrest calls to me over his shoulder, “try apologising. I’ve found it works wonders.”