I open my mouth to argue again, but the words catch in my throat because he’s right. That heavy, churning, creative pressure I feel—the one that wakes me up at three a.m.—thatdoesn’t belong exclusively to me. It’s an artist’s burden, and my mother is an artist.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” I whisper, running a wet finger across the rim of the pot. It feels strangely cool, grounding. “But why didn’t she justsaythat? Why didn’t she say, ‘I had to paint this because I was scared and this is how I process things?’”
Zachary shrugs slightly, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Well, let me ask you something. Haveyoualways been able to express how you feel about your illness? Up until recently, when you met, say, an overly curious, extremely handsome science teacher?”
I pull a face, but I know the answer.
“No,” I admit with a chuckle. “No, I haven’t. I buried it. All of it. Deep inside. I avoided looking at it, talking about it, acknowledging it. It was easier to pretend the lupus didn't exist than to face the fact that my body betrayed me.”
“Exactly,” he says, his tone still gentle, not victorious. “It’s hard. Maybe she’s dealing with the same block. The subject is too painful, so she focuses on the practicalities: the auction, the compromise, the size. Not thewhy.”
He gets up, walks over to the sink, and starts to clean the clay off his hands.
“So, instead of a total ban, maybe you try to find a middle ground,” he suggests, wiping his hands on a nearby rag. He walks back over and settles beside me again. “You want control over the narrative. You want to give permission. So give it to her, but on your terms. Maybe instead of her using the photo of you back then, when you were sick and vulnerable and didn’t even know you were being documented, she uses one you take now, during your next flare. A picture thatyoucontrol.Youget to choose the angle, the setting, the expression. She uses that as her model.”
The idea is revolutionary.Control.
“That way, you are collaborating,” he says. “You’re giving her the emotional material she needs for her process, but you’re owning the image. You’re giving your consent, and you’re empowering yourself in the process.”
I stare at him, feeling a sudden rush of warmth that has nothing to do with the studio temperature. “I love that,” I breathe out. “That’s brilliant, Zachary.”
“I’m happy to take the picture for you, too,” he says, a playful smirk twisting his lips. “I can make it very dramatic. Maybe we can get Frida in the frame, looking mischievous.”
I burst out laughing, the tension finally snapping. The absurdity of a portrait of my lupus flare, featuring my ornery ferret, is exactly the kind of levity I needed.
I reach out and hug him tightly, my clay-covered fingers brushing against his neck again. “You always know how to make me feel better. Like I don’t have to hide this—any of it.”
I pull back, ready to launch back into the joy of the clay, determined to throw all thirty of the little pots tonight because he’s got my back.
But as I reach for the switch to turn the wheel back on, a loud, distinct sound cuts through the quiet of the studio.
It’s coming from outside the locked door to the studio that leads to a small supply storage area that you walk through when you first enter the building, before you can go into the main part of the studio where Zachary and I are. The metallic, rhythmic sound of someone violently rattling the door handle, twisting and pulling it, as if desperate to get in.
We both freeze. The studio, usually a place of warm, dusty comfort, suddenly feels cavernous and cold.
“What is happening?” I whisper, my heart immediately thudding against my ribs.
“I’ll check it out,” Zachary says, his voice low and cautious. He pushes his stool back with a soft scrape on the concrete floor.
He walks quickly and quietly across the room towards the studio door, unlocks it, then walks through the supply area to the main door. By the time he gets there, the rattling has stopped. The silence that follows is heavy, charged with uncertainty.
From my safe distance I can see him put his hand on the handle, but instead of opening the door he pauses, listening. Nothing. Just the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.
He quickly flips the thumb lock, ensuring it’s secure, then presses his ear to the cold metal of the door. “I don’t think anyone is there anymore,” he confirms, pulling back and glancing at me.
“Maybe it was just a janitor trying to get into the supply closet?” I suggest, trying to rationalize the sudden intrusion.
“Maybe. I think the janitors usually use the supply closet in the main hallway, though.” He shakes his head, dismissing it. “It’s fine. We’re locked in. Probably just someone trying to use the back way to the storage room.”
He turns to come back towards me, but then he stops again, his gaze fixed on a shelf on his right. It’s one of those freestanding, industrial metal shelves, stacked with jars of glaze and buckets of slip.
“That’s odd,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“That toolbox.” He points. There’s a medium-sized, battered red metal toolbox that had been sitting neatly on the middle shelf, next to a stack of carving tools. It’s now on the floor beside the shelf. It couldn’t have just fallen; it’s heavy, and the shelf lip is high.
It’s ambiguous enough to be dismissed—maybe it was jostled earlier, maybe the shelf is loose. Maybe therattlingoutsideshook it free. But combined with the aggressive attempt to open the door, it sends a strange chill over me.
