The moment I said the words, the same words I spoke to him on the night of the party, the two events overlapped in my brain.
One full of fear and pain. Now overwritten with anticipation, excitement, and pleasure. Not erasing the first but placing it out of harm’s way while I move into a future where it doesn’t belong.
I spent most of the day doing similar work with my art, slowly finding my way back to equilibrium. Adjusting to the loss, finding a path that will lead to happiness.
It is devastating but I know I can recover. I’ve already made a start, sketching ideas, adding to the painting I’d already started in the studio. The wound will be tender, maybe forming thickscar tissue when it heals, but the hopelessness that had me in its grasp has gone.
I’m starting afresh and, along with the grief, there’s excitement.
Zane’s message was completely unexpected. It feels like weeks have passed since Friday when I stabbed my finger at his list and raged about its inadequacy.
He listened. He adjusted. He delivered.
I’ll never use the message against him, but it fills me with a deep satisfaction that he thought to gift it to me. That he had the courage in himself and the trust in me to do it.
A phone rings and it takes a second to recognise it as mine, then another few to locate it in the tangle of discarded clothing. “Yes?”
“Avon? It’s Gail from the Tiaki River Gallery.”
My throat seizes with excitement, nothing but a few whimpers coming out in response.
“We met last week at the gallery exhibition?”
“Yes. Sorry. Yes, I know who you are. I’m just tongue-tied.”
He laughs and I feel a buzz of relief, then reach over to tap Zane on the leg, pointing to the phone while he looks puzzled.
Honestly. Can’t anyone read minds when you need them to?
“How can I help you, Gail?”
Zane rolls his eyes, presumably at me sounding like a customer service agent from the eighties.
“It’s more how you can help me, dear. I have an upcoming show with a couple of spaces yet to be filled, and I thought of your marvellous work. Would you be able to come into the gallery this week so I can see your pieces in person?”
I feel like my head is about to explode with excitement.
Then my world comes crashing down.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out, my voice drowning in a sea of tears. “But I can’t. Everything I’ve ever made was destroyed.”
It takes me time to explain, my voice getting so thick at times I can barely get the words out. By the end, I’m miserable at the wasted opportunity. “I’m so sorry to let you down.”
Instead of agreeing, he gives a trilling laugh. “Nonsense. You’re still working, aren’t you? We have a showcase for emerging artists every six months. If you’re not able to make the one now, how d’you think you’ll be placed for March?”
I whack Zane until he captures my hand to stop me. A buzz envelopes me from head to toe. “That sounds fantastic.”
We arrange to meet a few months out from the subsequent show and a new rush of gratitude turns me mostly inarticulate again.
When I hang up, I’m completely energised, rushing across the studio, picking out a blank prepped canvas and placing my work-in-progress on the rack to dry. There’s another piece on there that I take out to move to a lower shelf, then freeze.
It’s me.
The painting scoops my breath straight from my chest, making my heart seize like a coronary. It isn’t just my image like I’d see in a mirror or a selfie butme, like Zane’s work is an x-ray that captured my essence, the blood pulsing through my veins, the muddled thoughts tumbling in my head.
The eyes are larger than life, hinting at a dozen expressions. Caught between tears of laughter and sorrow, lines crinkling at the corner to layer sadness over joy, flickering between different emotions just as I do on any given day.
It’s a work of art but it’s more than that; like cracking me open and putting my vital organs on display. The technical prowess falls away behind the incredible rush of feelings that the painting invokes.
