“I wanted to paint her here,” he starts softly.
Holding my breath, I try not to make a sound. I don’t want him to stop, but I have no idea if I’ll be able to handle what he is about to tell me.
“It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, and it was warm, not like now.” He stops for a moment and frowns, licking his lips nervously before continuing. “I had this idea. It was a vision of her.” He releases his grip on his sweater and drops his handinto his lap. “I always thought she was so”—a shudder racks him—“ethereal. She was always so ethereal looking. Her skin was so pale and perfect.”
Turning his head, he pins me with his stare, and I notice for the first time that his eyes have tears in them.
“She was perfect.” Shaking his head, he looks back to the darkness. “I asked her if she would mind posing in the water.”
Laughing a little, he squeezes my hand again. My heart thumps harder at every word that is coming from his mouth.
“She smiled and asked if she had to be naked. I told her, ‘No, I want you to be in a dress, a white dress.’”
The tight grip on my hand loosens, and I feel him slipping away from me. I try to think of something,anything, to keep him talking in the moment.
“So, you wanted her in a white dress? Why?”
This time, when his eyes meet mine, they look tortured. He turns back to face the water.
“I wanted to paint her as I saw her, like my own gift from God. I wanted her to look like an angel.”
I try to imagine how he is feeling, but I find I have no words. Instead, we sit silently for I don’t know how long on the grassy bank of the Fleuve Sauvage de Fleurs. I can feel her presence in a way I never have before.
His angel is here.
Twenty-Six
DECEPTIVE
Day 19
DECEPTIVE ~
PERCEPUTUALLY MISLEADING—that is how I have always seen myself.
People always tend to label me or make assumptions about who I am. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re different or have a handicap.
I woke up this morning to Phillipe curled behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist and his mouth against my neck. He told me a few days ago that he was done with the collection. He saidSacredwas the final image, and he’d already sent it to town.
He was wrong. I knew I wanted him to paint one more picture.
I wanted him to paintDeceptive.
I wanted him to paint me frommyperspective.
Stepping into the studio the next morning, I find him over in the chair I first saw him in weeks ago. Not one word is spoken as I move to the easel that is still set up where he left it yesterday. Steeling myself against what I’m going to see, I tell my heart to calm down.
I can feel his eyes tracking me. Instead of feeling uneasy like I did during that first meeting, I feel aware, and I feel loss. I feel the loss of a man I want and know I can never have.
Turning to face theSacredimage, I am once again shocked by the knowledge that he never painted me in any of these replicas. It was alwaysher.This time, I don’t back away from the re-creation of her he has so painstakingly painted. No, this time, I reach out and run my fingers down the violin.
“She truly is beautiful, not only her, but Diva, too,” I whisper, trying to let him know that I’m okay with this. I want him to know that I am resolved to the fact that I can never be her and that I can never have him, but my words are met only with the heavy weight of sobering silence.
I look over all the tiny details he has remembered, focusing on the position of her hands and the scratches on the violin. It is terrifying in its brilliance, and I know that each and every image he has recently painted is a perfect replica of the originals that are hanging in memory two floors below.
“There are no F-holes on any of the paintings afterSolitaryandAcquiesce. Why is that?” I ask belatedly.
He rests his elbows on the arms of the chair and his fingers form a steeple in front of his mouth, covering the lower half of his face. Still, he says nothing.
