Chapter Twenty Lily #2
As the two of us continue exploring the museum, I feel somehow lighter, more optimistic.
When I’m around Theo, I miss Henry less.
Or, at the very least, I momentarily forget how much I miss him.
The hole in my chest is still there, but it no longer throbs around the edges.
I can almost ignore it. I find myself wishing that summer wouldn’t end so I can keep him around.
Up the winding, circular staircase, on the enclosed glass roof walk, we marvel at panoramic views of downtown. We look onto the rain-coated streets, the light brick buildings made darker by the water, the gray-shingled roofs almost blackish.
There is a moment when we are standing there, slightly out of breath from the climb, when I think he might kiss me.
I’m giggling at his impression of me almost falling asleep during one of the museum curator’s presentations, imitating my head bobbing up and down.
My sides hurt from laughing, and I’m holding on to the railing for support.
We’re bent so close together our heads are nearly touching.
We lock eyes, and there it is: an opening, an opportunity.
I can feel my heart stutter, and I barely have enough time to wonder if this is something I want before the moment has passed.
Another museum guest walks up the stairs, a man with two young children who are holding large whale stuffed animals.
“Oh, sorry,” the man says when he sees us. We break apart immediately.
Once the rain subsides, Theo suggests we take a walk around town.
“Will you tell me about how you first got started with art?” Theo asks as we pass various shops, weaving through the crowds. Straw hats bob up and down, undeterred by the overcast.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, embarrassed. “Do you really want to know about that?”
I’m still waiting to hear back from Marie Chen, and the anxiety is settling in. I reached out again yesterday and she never responded—it’s becoming more and more likely that she is purposefully ignoring me.
Theo nods. “I just want to get to know you better.”
When he looks at me, his eyes are stained glass. There’s something about his expression. I remember how I felt when I first met him and wished I had something to draw with. The light is pure and sharp.
“The first time I really felt moved by art is kind of silly,” I say. “It sounds stupid.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t.” His expression is insistent and unwavering.
I give in with a slightly exasperated sigh. “It was at an antiques store downtown. Lottie had taken me there to look for some pottery.”
I remember the store smelled of old laundry and stale bread, and a layer of dust coated everything like powdered sugar.
Each time Lottie picked up an object to examine it and then placed it back down on the wooden shelves, particles danced in the air like synchronized swimmers.
There were old globes and compasses and sailor’s valentines and faded sculptures of mermaids with their tops askew.
Nantucket baskets woven together tightly like braids.
“Lottie told me to pick out anything I liked, but there was so much stuff to sort through, and honestly, I would have rather gone to the candy store in the back of Force Five.” I look at Theo.
He nods. “Of course.”
There’s a “secret” candy store there in the back room of the popular surf shop, stocked floor to ceiling with all sorts of old brands. There’s always a middle schooler on duty, manning the cash register and using a calculator to tally up your order.
“But that’s when I saw it. On the wall to the left, sandwiched between a carved wooden sailboat sculpture and a rumpled American flag was a painting of an old sea captain.”
He looked as battered and faded as the flag next to him, but there was a triumphant sparkle in his eyes.
Sea sprayed behind his back, the ship’s wheel glued to his chest, and a pipe to his mouth.
His beard was white and thick as salt water.
There was no expiration date on his face.
Maybe I liked the man because he reminded me of everything my father wasn’t: reliable, sturdy.
I have this memory, and I can’t tell if it’s real or imagined, but we’re watching the fireworks at Ladies Beach on the island—back when Lottie still let my father stay—and he lifted me onto his shoulders so I could see better.
I must have been five or six. On the long way back to the parked car, when dusk had turned into night and the bugs woke singing their song, he carried me because I was too tired to walk.
It’s an insignificant half memory, but I’ve never forgotten the profound feeling of safety.
At some point, I stopped feeling that way around him and never got it back.
“I remember thinking that I liked how settled the sailor looked, all sea and stories. I remember marveling at how much personality the painter had captured. Lottie bought it for me. It cost less than twenty bucks, and upon closer inspection, we realized it was a print of an oil painting created by some anonymous artist, but I didn’t care. I was in love.”
“Do you still have it?” Theo asks.
I nod. “I keep it in the closet in my bedroom.”
“Like a shrine?” Theo jokes.
“Maybe,” I admit. “The other day I started a new project, inspired by the painting.”
After I abandoned the photo of Lottie in the garden, I decided to try sketching instead.
I looked at the sailor’s painting and began to wish that I could capture the women in my life with as much gravitas.
I started a portrait of Lottie based on the photo, except in the sketch, she is looking directly at the viewer—defiant, as if refusing death.
After that, I did another sketch of Rose, getting ready for work in the morning.
In the drawing, she’s brushing her hair, analyzing her reflection, her expression difficult to read.
Her matching pink sweater and skirt look like armor.
They’re quiet images, simple, but I liked them all the more for that.
There’s something beautiful about preserving the ordinary.
“Can I see it?” asks Theo.
“Maybe someday, but not today. It’s not ready yet.”
The work is still in that precious stage of creation where it’s mine alone, shielded from the judgment of anyone else.
“The first time I drew something of my own it was of the cottage. Everything was change back then, but when I drew that picture—when I played around with the yellow hue of the light above the door, the shadow against the bronze knocker—I realized I could freeze time. I could keep everything just the same,” I tell him.
“After that, nothing felt real until I had captured it.”
“That makes sense,” says Theo. “What you said about freezing time.”
We’ve stopped walking, caught up in the conversation. Around us, the island hums, the crowd of tourists parting around our bodies, and there we are, swept with the current, swimming sideways.