“How many children do you have?” I ask.
“Three, with another on the way,” Dr. Rice replies, smiling. “Two girls and a boy, so far. We’ve been blessed.”
He scrolls through my vitals, then picks up his tablet. “I’m going to order you a heftier iron supplement and make a few changes to your NourishBox program. We’ll boost the vitamins and minerals mostly through diet. If that doesn’t do the trick, we can move to infusions. But let’s see where we get with this first.”
Wyatt lets out a long breath. I smile at him, but the oxygen mask prevents him from seeing it. “Can I take this off now?”
“As long as you’re feeling steady,” Dr. Rice replies. I remove the mask and the hiss of oxygen stops. “Let’s take one last pressure and oxygen saturation, and we’ll send you on your way.”
—
Thirty minutes later Wyatt and I are heading up the town house stairs. He was supposed to go straight back to the worksite, but after what happened at the appointment he insists on seeing me home. It’s sweet, and I appreciate the concern, but I’m tired of answering questions about how I’m feeling.
I want to be alone so I can figure a few things out without being under his watchful eye.
My mother’s words and her voice, in that strange tone, echo through my mind, crowding everything else out.“The work doesn’t like to be kept waiting. It isn’t wise to keep the artist waiting.”
I need to get back to work.
Wyatt finally leaves to get Clementine from school. Shelby is out with a friend, doing some early Christmas shopping, even though we’re still a month away from celebrating. I insist that Wyatt not call her.I don’t need a babysitter, I say.Let’s not make this a bigger deal than it is.How ironic that he’s suggesting Shelby keep an eye on me, versus the other way around. Eventually he lets it go, after I promise to call him every fifteen minutes until he’s back home. Finally, I am alone.
I head to my studio the moment the door closes behind him. Once inside, I take a look around. Everything is as it should be; everything is where it should be.
My relief is short-lived, however, because on the heels of it comes the memory of seeing my mother at the clinic. Let’s hope this is truly as simple as a low-iron issue, but even as I think this, I understand it can’t explain everything. Not even close.
It isn’t wise to keep the artist waiting.
Again, my mother’s words infiltrate my mind and my hands begin removing the painting’s cover. I watch in awed confusion as my fingers peel away the cover, corner by corner. I can’t feel my hands or the restof my arms, all the way up to my shoulders. It’s as though they’re under another’s control. As though they belong to someone else.
The cleaning is nearly two-thirds finished, the subject (another hit of relief, seeing her in place) exposed up to her neck. I know the final third will be difficult—the fire damage more extensive toward the top of the painting. It’s going to require a delicate, steady approach.
The feeling suddenly returns to my arms and hands, the pins and needles all-consuming. I shake them out, grimacing with the pain, until the tingling eases.
Do not think of her, Tilly. Do not think of her.
How can I not think of her?
—
I was twenty-one and home from Queen’s University in Kingston. I was halfway through my third year of a four-year bachelor of science degree, with an eye toward becoming a conservator, like my mother. So far the break had been about sleeping in and spending time with my mom.
We visited the Distillery’s Christmas market, went to see the decorated windows downtown, had a festive-themed high tea at the Royal York hotel. There was a big snowfall, something that was becoming a rarity with the current climate woes. Out of childhood nostalgia I convinced my mom to build a snowman with me on the front lawn. She tied one of her painter’s palettes onto the snowman’s stick arm, and then we dressed it as a Parisian artist, complete with a beret and mustache made of hairs from an old brush. Though Mom had no French heritage, she was a self-proclaimed Francophile. After that we made salted-caramel popcorn balls and ate them for dinner, in honor of my grandmother.
It was a wonderful holiday.
Then, two days before Christmas, I met friends downtown for brunch. We had mimosas and caught up on gossip and news, after which I meandered home tipsy. Mom was taking advantage of thequiet house to put final touches on a presentation for a CAC—Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property—conference two weeks later.
I let myself in the back door. I didn’t want to disturb my mom, but I also didn’t want her to know I was day drunk. Even though we were years past lectures about such things.
Everything appeared normal at first, though in retrospect I remember thinking the house felt oddly empty. Too quiet. But Mom was upstairs in her studio with the door likely closed, as it often was. I paused, listening closely, and heard something faint through the ceiling…as though someone was sweeping the hardwood floors above. Maybe she was tidying up her studio.
I shuffled into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, then grabbed a sugar cookie from the batch we’d decorated the night before. It was a holiday wreath with bright green and red icing, and silver candy balls. My plan was to chill on the couch until Mom came downstairs, maybe scroll through my phone for a social media dopamine hit while the mimosas wore off.
But I never made it to the living room.
Three steps out of the kitchen I stopped abruptly, staring uncomprehendingly at what lay on the floor a few feet away. The cookie and glass dropped from my hands, and for a long moment I stood still as a statue. Then I screamed.
My feet were like concrete blocks as I closed the gap between us. I didn’t know what to do. I was crying, then choking on the bite of cookie caught in the back of my throat. My eyes watered as I gagged.
