For the Love of Art Pt. 03

"You're kidding me, Mr. Ryne," I said, exasperated and hoping I'd missed the punchline of a prank.

Logic said obviously he would give me one of his shirts, as he wouldn't have female clothing laying around. Petty Jealous Grace Jr. said the woman from the photo ought to have left behind something. Then there was the part of me that whole heartedly wanted to strip down naked, wiggle into his shirt and intentionally-mistakenly bump into him.

But of course, I went the reasonable route: hide out in the laundry room until my clothes were finished.

Minutes later, I was dumping detergent into the washer, Becky's boots set off to the side, my hair freed from its million and one bobby pins. Mr. Ryne's shirt reached just above my knees, but luckily, with the return of electricity, the heat was purring lovingly.

The washer said 30 more minutes. I could deal with that. With the door closed, I leaned against it, then slid down and dared waste my dwindling battery life on a drawing app.

Three hideous stick figures later, my phone rang. I answered immediately when the ID said 'Grandma.'

"Grandma, hi!" My voice held the merriment of an extrovert who'd been in solitary confinement for weeks.

"Hey-" The line crackled.

Right. Poor reception. I stood. "Hold on, hold on." Poking my head out the door, I lowered the phone from my ear to listen. Nothing. Maybe he was still outside.

Closing the laundry room door behind me, I made my way to the foyer, its lights still out. This time I had no qualms about it as I put the phone back to my ear. "Better?"

"Gracie, sweet pea?"

Ugh, it still crackled. The home was huge, but how did he survive with its bad connection? Shifting the phone like I did in the basement, I followed the path of better reception until I reached a spiral staircase that led up. Sparing the front door one glance, I climbed them hurriedly. "Grandma?"

"Gracie!"

I smiled. Perfect. "Hey, how've you been doing? I'm sorry I haven't called in . . ." How long had it been?

"Oh no," she chuckled. "You kids grow up and forget about ol' Grandma."

I was still smiling, warmed by the familiar voice. "I'm sorry. I'm bad about calling, well, everybody. How are you and Grandpa?"

"Oh we're doing good. Grandpa took out the grill the other day, cooked up some hotdogs and hamburgers for the church. You know Bishop do that thing for the kids every Christmas, so we helping out with that."

Upstairs, the lights were out, and if not for the large windows stretching from one side of the home to the mezzanine overlooking the mini library, the room would have been blackened. But the frail light of the moon through snowy clouds kept me from total blindness. I crossed to the windows and looked out. Mr. Ryne was still shoveling snow, likely regretting his acres, but it looked as though he were almost done. A barrel of cables sat off near the fountain alongside a bunch of metal tools. Every now and again, he would go to it, shuffle through it, then resume the hoisting of snow, even as fat papery flakes fell down to undermine his progress.

"I'm glad to hear," I said quietly. I missed home. I missed the house on the sketchy block by the sketchy cornerstore. I missed going to Grandma's, helping her cook and listening as she talked endlessly. It was why I couldn't wait to go home for Christmas, to snap on my kitchen gloves and get to work on the turkey with my special injection needle.

"Tell me how you been. You been staying warm? I was looking at the weather up there. You know there's supposed to be a big storm."

Didn't I. "I'm staying nice and warm." Mr. Ryne was passionate about the fact, though I left that part out. "Waiting for the snow to lighten up."

"Midnight," Grandma said, because stalking the weather was the highlight of her existence. "You staying safe too?"

"Uh . . . yes, Grandma. Not a lot goes on around here. It's Canada."

"I know what it is. Home of the honkies. You up there by yourself. Gots to be careful. You know they crazy."

And here we went.

"Was lookin' at the news, another girl found dead in a white man's basement. And you know they done shot another little black boy for no good reason. Just watch yourself, you hear me?"

I was an artist. I'd learned long ago that everything wasn't so black and white. I could never deny the racial injustice that lived in the states, but explaining to Grandma that things weren't quite the same up here in the provinces would fall on deaf ears. Instead, I spoke a separate truth, "I hear you. I'll stay safe and ever the vigilant one."

"Good, good. You been eating good?"

Hm. I wasn't an avid eater. I weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. I worked at a restaurant on campus. Most of the money went towards tuition and art supplies as well as discounted meals, but to say I was eating good? Not really. Healthy? Not a chance. But I was eating. I went with that answer. "I've been eating." My stomach growled in objection.

"I have to make sure. You know you kids just do what you wanna do when you go off. Don't stop to think. Gotta treat yourself right or you won't have no self to treat. Gotta treat your body right, gotta keep your mind sharp, 'cause they waitin' for us to slip up. We don't have time to do no games."

Games? And who was "they"? Had Grandma been reading The Absolute Eye as well, believing in the all-knowing, watchful eye? "Grandma, I'm twenty-two. By all accounts—"

"I don't care how old you are, Gracie. We're talking about you and your future. Once you done playin' around up there with the white folk and they pencils and crayons, come yourself back down here and get a real education, find yourself a real man and settle yourself down."

The words were a stark, solid slap. "I have a real education, Grandma. Or, at least, I'm getting one." But I could feel the sink coming, and I prepared to make myself steel.

"Honey, ain't no job with coloring. Ain't no man up there. Ain't no place to settle down." Grandma wasn't speaking from the stigma of Canada being notoriously abstract; she was speaking from resentment for me ever going to school so far away. If she even considered this school.

There were many paths in art, I told myself. And it wasn't coloring. As for a man . . . I looked back out to see Mr. Ryne lifting orange cables and disappearing in the hedges by the sentinel trees. He was a man. A real one at that. One who went ridiculous lengths to keep his houseguest warm, and I'd experienced first hand just how real a man he was when I was strapped to his waist, his manhood all the evidence anyone would need. But the last part, a place to settle down, it gave me pause. This was no home of mine, and as I looked around the shadows of the interior's grandeur, I wondered just how welcomed here I was.

I swallowed the uncertainty. "I'm trying, Grandma." I was trying to be someone great, for myself and for my family. I wanted to be as magnificent as the man out there in the snow now.

"You trying in the wrong place, Gracie. Wasting everybody's time and money."

I grimaced at that, knowing the lady didn't know the difference between affectionate tender love and care and a biting insult. Still, my stomach became concrete as I thought of the money Daddy had given towards my first year of school, and how much time my brother had spent helping me get here. That she thought I was wasting their efforts . . .

"Your Mama's always calling, talking about how her babies done left her, but at least Keith comes home every now and again." She paused, making the familiar smacking sound as she gnawed an orange. "And you know, your cousin Penny, she just graduated with her bachelors of the biology. Mhm, oh yeah. Mhm. She doin' real good. You coming down here for the graduation?"

Times like these, I despised my ovaries and overactive hormones. My eyes stung, watered, but when tears threatened, I tilted my head back. When that did little to ward off the thought that just maybe Grandma was right, I was playing with pencils and crayons, I took in a shuddering inhale. Then stared hard at the snow below until the sting in my eyes dried. "I'll get a real job with my current education. I'm going to a great school. Those who graduate Nova Scotia with their Masters go great places." If I got in. They only accepted a handful of students each year.

"Okay, honey." The way she said it, so willy-nilly and distracted, clogged my throat with those unshed tears and gritted my teeth at the same time.

I was clenching the phone hard now. I didn't give a damn about my cousin Penny, who walked on water as far as Grandma was concerned. That was why it felt good to say, "I don't think I'm going to make it to the graduation. All my money I saved up is going to my train ticket home for Christmas."

"Train ticket?"

"Yes, train ticket."

"Ya Mama said you didn't have enough."

. . . "What?"

"She said she was gonna borrow money from Charlie this weekend, but then she said he ain't do overtime so—I thought she would have told you. You know ya mom. She's my child."

That couldn't be right. Last we'd spoken, she said she would front me the money and I'd pay her back. Reaching for my patience, I said curtly, "I have to go, Grandma. Thank you for calling."

"Alright now, Gracie. Talk to me soon."

I hung up quickly, confusion and anger sending my mind strange places. Dialing Ma's number, I stalked around the mezzanine, then collapsed on the nearest chair when she answered.

"Stranger," came the thick Louisiana accent.

"We Facetimed three days ago," I reminded her.

"Girl, that ain't talking. You have to communicate better than that."

"Funny you should say that," I said tartly, struggling to hold back the full thrust of my ire. "I just talked to Grandma and she said I didn't have a train ticket. Ma, you bought the ticket, didn't you?" Was that desperation in my voice?

"Gracie, listen—"

"Ma!" I practically squealed. "My turkey! Did you get the right pounds, the ingredients I messaged you? Ma, Ma—tell me you got my train ticket. How's the turkey?" Panic scrambled my words.

"I'm sorry," she said, used to the erratic speech when I got worked. Her voice was a deep, husky bass that was impossible to tell if there lay true remorse. "I talked to Charlie, and well, your dad said he couldn't get the extra money."

"B-but you said you had the money!" Pressure was building in my head. Was she saying I couldn't come home for Christmas? After the semester I'd had, after all the nostalgia I'd just sat through—she couldn't be saying this. I wanted to go home. I wanted to watch dumb shows with my brother and fall asleep on the too small couch.

"Don't go getting loud. If you stayed your ass down here we wouldn't have this problem."

"How would it have been different?"

"You wouldn't need three hundred and fifty dollars for a train ticket. You should have bought it earlier. That's what I was telling you. I'm always telling you these things."

"Ma, you told me to wait and just get my school supplies. You said you'd help me out."

"It's okay, Grace. Charlie said he would try his hands at the turkey."

I nearly screamed. "Daddy doesn't know how to cook a hotdog!" And did she honestly think that was the only reason I wanted to go home? With each passing moment, I was beginning to think it should have been.

"If you stayed down here, you would've been in your fourth year, would have had an internship just like your brother and you could've used your brain for a real paying education. I love you, but I hate to see that brain wastin' away."

There went that word "real", a gleaming, deadly shard, cutting deep. I'd saved up for that train ticket, sacrificed quality school utensils for cheaper brands, setting aside pennies. Roman noodles was my midnight friend! All that time, I had been under the impression I had my mom's help, but did she even care whether or not I was there if she had someone to take my place as cook? I was never sure when she got like this, if she was like Grandma, blind to her own actions, or if her words were intentionally set aside to punish me. Each year they all spoke with venom of my choices, and each year I fought hard to smile, laugh, enjoy what parts of the holidays were not so berating of the life path I had chosen.

Fourth year, it wasn't supposed to mean this much to me, it really wasn't, but as I sat there in the dark, the warm roll of tears said differently.

"Hello?" she asked when I was quiet for too long.

"I'm here," I said, voice clear.

"I don't think I got the ingredients though. Can you text them to your daddy?"

I blinked but it worsened the tears, until I couldn't see in front of me. I may as well have not gone to college at all if they thought it was the equivalent of me sitting down with a kid's coloring book and staying in the lines. "Okay, Ma. I will. Goodnight."

"Talk to you later, sweetie. If you can't find a way down here, I'll see if I can do international shipping on your gifts."

"Thanks, Ma," was the hollow response before I hung up.

It must have been forever, how long I sat, arms wrapped around my legs, chin on my knees. I didn't live for the approval of others. My aspiration towards taking the parts of the world we see every day and moulding it into a repository of beauty, it was not limited to myself. I did what I did to make my family proud. I wanted them to see my art and blink twice, get a feeling in their chest and look at me with pride as they were overwhelmed with the time dedication, the complexity of the piece. The talent.

"Oh," was their distant response, however. "Good job."

It wasn't crime TV. It wasn't a phone call of drama and gossip. It wasn't the news. It wasn't the weather. It wasn't the lottery. To them, it was a bar below nothing. They never outright said it, but each year they resented my passion for it more and more. And the more I tried to explain it in ways they understood, the more withdrawn and standoffish they came to be towards it.

I flinched when lights came on.

"Miss Larson?"

I hurried to wipe my eyes, sniffing. I'd forgotten I was here, with the other half of my inspiration. "Yeah?" I said, too fast, too breathy. I kept my lids low, trying to find my calm. Crying over such repetitive disappointment was pathetic. He was the last person I wanted to witness it.

He came over to me. One look at my face and his morphed entirely. A shadow drew over it and everything about his posture hardened to a dangerous ferocity. "What's wrong?"

Thrown off by the sudden change, I blinked up at him, then shook my head. "Nothing. How'd you know to look up here?"

"Because I looked everywhere else."

"Right." I held back a sniffle, looking him over. He'd gotten out of his winter coat and boots and was back to wearing a simple pair of sneakers and the turtle neck. When I couldn't hold the sniffle back any longer, his fingers twitched and it looked as though it were taking everything in him not to zero in on what he wanted to know.

I was taken aback when he asked, "Do you want ice cream?"

Did I really look that pathetic? Like a pitiful child after a tantrum who needed cool down ice cream? The tears weren't even that of sadness—maybe a bit, but they were primarily angry tears. Anger towards all of them.

But then he said, "It's literally the only edible thing I have at my disposal."

Questioning that at this point seemed moot, considering the greater concerns. But who was I to turn down ice cream? I stood and watched as his shadowed face darkened into something else. Then I looked down and narrowed my eyes at the t-shirt. "You said clothes. Plural. This was all you left."

"You're welcome." There was nothing concealing the full throw of his appreciation, and my chest was too congested with other things to allow modesty in.

I folded my arms tight around my chest, then dropped them when that only seemed to make things worse. Exasperated, I led us toward the main concern, "Ice cream."

After one more raking look, he made his way to the kitchen. There, he laid out two bowls on a black and white marble island. I sat at one end, not liking how much I looked forward to ice cream.

He gave me a spoon, hesitated when he looked to me. "Are you sure nothing's wrong?"

Why couldn't he see he was the last person I wanted to unload on? I focused down on the spoon and black bowl. "It's nothing, Mr. Ryne."

With a look that said he wasn't buying it, he went over to the sleek refrigerator. Opened it, then looked back at me. "Money troubles?"

My head snapped up.

He shrugged. "So I heard a little of the conversation."

It was difficult to be crossed with his eavesdropping when he pulled my favorite ice cream from the freezer: cookie dough. My stomach rumbled for the third time.

He caught the hungry regard of the container and swore under his breath. "I'm sorry. I really should have been better prepared for company. I had a lot of things on my agenda, starving you was never one of them."

I averted my eyes. "No, it's fine. Really. It's actually my favorite." When he turned to get an ice cream scooper, I hurriedly wiped my eyes again and took in as silent a sniffle as I could. Everything was fine. I was fine. Who cared what family thought? They were only your backbone for the first eighteen years of your life.

Finding it, he quickly rinsed it off then came beside me, popping the lid from the container. There was three fourths remaining. "Say when." He scooped. And scooped. And scooped. When I said nothing, he raised his brows. "Well, how about this." He put two scoops back in the bucket, took the spoon from my bowl and shoved it in the source. Then planted the entire container in front of me. "There."

My mouth watered. "Thank you. For everything. I'm sorry for all of this."

"Stop thanking me," he ordered, taking up the bowl that had but one lone scoop of ice cream in it.

Funny, I didn't feel all bad about our unfair rations. I was starving and I found ice cream was the one thing I valued more than common courtesy. One spoon of it, and my mood jumped from horrible to bearable. It was softened from the power outage, just the way I liked it. I was one third into the bucket when Mr. Ryne spoke up.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" He hadn't touched his one scoop.

Meanwhile, me, I adamantly munched on a chunk of cookie dough. After another spoon, I shrugged, numbing to the entire occurrence. "Same thing that happens every year. My family being their unreliable selves."

"Yeah?"

I spooned another mouthful, crunched some more. "It's my mother. We'd had it worked out. At the start of the semester, she told me to buy the supplies I needed for your class and that she would help me pay for my train ticket home. I deserve this. What happened, I deserve. This is all she ever does. Get my hopes up, way up, just to let me down the hardest she knows how." I ate another scoop angrily. "I should have prepared for this. I should have done what I did every year. Saved up myself."

"Miss Larson—"

"Don't even think to offer me money. They don't want me home, fine. I don't want to be there." I knew it was the upset talking, but I was intent to ride it out. "Not to say I don't appreciate it, I do. But I don't know why you keep being so generous to me, when I'm pretty sure you . . ." I waved my spoon in his general direction. "I don't know what this is. I don't know what you think this is going to grow into. You hating me. Me making poor life decisions anytime you're near. This . . ." My eyes were beginning to sting again. I dosed on four spoons this time, where Mr. Ryne sat patiently waiting. When I could speak again without a tear threatening to betray me, I stabbed the spoon in the remaining ice cream. "I just wanted to be great. I wanted to be . . . I don't know, like you. I don't want the fame, but—I don't know, I felt if maybe I was as good as you, maybe I could make them see art the way I do. A relief, a life extension."