Twenty-Seven
Hudson
I went out for takeout around five o’clock, right after she moved on to the second canvas.
I ate mine standing at the workbench so I wouldn’t interrupt whatever was happening on the other side of the room, and left hers on the crate beside her.
She ate three bites over the next hour without once looking away from the canvas.
I gave up trying to work two hours ago.
Rowan is distracting on any given day, but Rowan lost in her work is something else entirely.
I’ve seen a handful of her smaller pieces, the ones she keeps upright on easels. I assumed that was how she painted generally.
This is not that.
These two canvases are huge, laid flat on the floor. She works around them rather than in front of them, crouching, kneeling, at one point lying on the floor to reach the middle. It’s physical in a way I didn’t associate with painting until tonight.
She’s barely spoken all day. The only exception came when I asked about the smaller painting she kept looking at.
“It’s not mine,” she said. “My mother painted it after I was born.”
She didn’t explain further, but she didn’t need to.
Twice, I’ve watched her wipe at her face with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of paint along her cheek before she lowers the brush and goes back to work.
Whatever that painting means to her, it hurts.
Her hands have been trembling for twenty minutes. I’ve watched her steady one with the other twice now, fingers closing around her wrist until the brush stops shaking. Her limp has worsened too, the left leg dragging more heavily each time she crosses the studio.
I asked her to stop once. Then again ten minutes later. Both times, she looked at me and said, “Not yet.”
So I keep water within reach, watch the tremor in her hands, and stay close.
If her body eventually makes the decision for her, I’d rather be ten feet away than ten miles.
I walk a slow loop around the canvases.
It’s two figures facing each other, submerged in deep greens and grays, both reaching upward with one arm toward the surface. Their other hands are locked together between them, fingers laced.
I can’t tell if they’re helping each other out or holding each other down.
One figure’s outline keeps splintering at the edges, fracturing into separate lines. The other figure is whole in outline but broken straight through the middle, joints bent at impossible angles, color pooling dark at the hip, the shoulder, the wrist.
If Rowan had spent the last hour sitting across from me, deliberately handing over every secret she has, I’m not sure I would understand as much as I do standing here.
A tear slips from her chin and lands in the wet paint.
She just drags her brush through the mark and works it into the green until I can’t tell where it landed.
It’s her and her mother.
I’ve been around Donna Callahan enough, professionally and otherwise, to recognize a fractured mind when I see it rendered in paint rather than in clinical notes.
This is Rowan’s therapy.
I’ve spent almost two years building a research study designed to get people talking about this kind of trauma, yet none of it has produced anything half as honest as what’s happening on this floor.
She makes one final pass through the dark color near the bottom of the canvas, then sits back on her heels.
When she finally stands, her legs almost give way.
She takes two uneven steps toward the rear wall, sets her brush on the workbench, and lowers herself to the ground, legs stretched out in front of her.
There’s the break. I’ve been waiting for it.
I cross the room and stop at her feet, hands in my pockets.
“I overdid it,” she admits.
“You think?”
“I might have slightly miscalculated.”
“Slightly.”
She looks past me at the canvas, breathing hard but smiling.
I follow her gaze.
“It’s…” Every word that comes to mind sounds inadequate. “I don’t actually have the right words for that.”
“Then I’ve done it right.” She draws in a slow breath and looks down at her legs. “I don’t think I can get up.”
“Good thing I’m climbable, then.”
Her head falls back against the brick as she laughs. “You’re funny, Shrink Wrap.”
“Keep that to yourself. I have a reputation.” I crouch in front of her. “Can I?”
She lifts both arms toward me. “Please.”
I slide one arm carefully beneath her knees and the other around her back, taking my time as I lift her.
She comes willingly, winding an arm around my shoulders.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
“Next time you decide to work yourself into the floor, give me some warning.”
“I’ll try.”
I carry her into her house, straight to the bathroom off her bedroom, and set her on the edge of the vanity. Her hands are covered in paint past the wrists, dried in some places, still wet in others.
I wet a clean cloth with warm water, add a little soap, and start with her right hand, slowly working the paint loose along her fingers.
Her breath catches the second the warm cloth touches her skin.
I rinse it, go over the same fingers again, and work my thumb into her palm, easing tension from muscles that have spent hours gripping a brush.
I can feel her eyes on me, but I keep looking at her hand. It’s safer there.
When I finish both hands, I notice a streak of pale blue along her cheekbone. I run my thumb over it and rub it away.
“Anything else you need?” I ask.
She clears her throat. “Can you grab me a T-shirt? Top drawer.”
I go into the bedroom, find an old gray T-shirt where she said it would be, and bring it back.
“I can take it from here,” she says, taking it from me. “You can wait in the bedroom if you’re worried.”
So… I wait.
I sit on the edge of her bed with my elbows braced on my knees, staring at the floorboards and becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I don’t want to leave.
If I get up now, I go back to a townhouse that suddenly feels far too large, full of quiet rooms that have sat empty for long enough that I’ve only just realized how hollow they are.
Rowan doesn’t just occupy a space. She completely overtakes it. She fills every corner with a presence so vivid it makes everything else feel pale by comparison.
We’ve barely said ten words to each other all day while she wrestled with those canvases, yet the thought of stepping out that door and removing myself from her orbit feels entirely wrong.
She emerges a few minutes later wearing the oversized T-shirt, her face clean and her hair damp at the edges where she’s splashed it with water.
She crosses the room slowly and climbs beneath the covers.
“I should let you sleep.”
Her hand shoots out and catches mine before I can take a step.
“It’s late,” she says. “Stay.”
I look down at our joined hands.
Say no, Hudson. Get in your car. Drive home. She’s safe. She’s finished painting. None of this requires you to spend the night in her bed.
The refusal doesn’t come.
I kick off my shoes, unbutton my collar, and lie on top of the covers beside her, fully dressed.
She curls onto her side, facing me, as I lie in the dark and listen to her breathing even out.
Somewhere in the middle of trying to figure out when I lost the ability to say no to her, I fall asleep too.