Author's Note
What a relief it is to replace on this Fourth Comings page the miserable, myopic musings of Jackson Horvath as he returned from the Pacific Coast after killing his wife.
Everything human has more than one perspective. Read another of that same event, this one still trapped decades later within the mind of someone else also involved. ... trapped there like a fly in a wad of amber, imbedded into a jewel setting, worn as an item of fashion, by a person attending a gala, that celebrates a …
You get the idea.
What a relief it is to replace on this Fourth Comings page the miserable, myopic musings of Jackson Horvath as he returned from the Pacific Coast after killing his wife.
Everything human has more than one perspective. Read another of that same event, this one still trapped decades later within the mind of someone else also involved. ... trapped there like a fly in a wad of amber, imbedded into a jewel setting, worn as an item of fashion, by a person attending a gala, that celebrates a …
You get the idea.
The First Portrait
“So just what do you want here?”
“Just what you remember, Annalise, back to that time in family life, back to when this would’ve been painted.”
I look at Hunter—so earnest, so incredibly awful in what he’s asking for. What the fuck. “Tell me again, what’s this for?”
“I’m writing narratives to go with the seven family portraits. Leanne has a publisher for a book. She’s writing artist statements about the process of painting each of them. But we’re also going to put in a description of the context for each painting according to the best reflection of someone depicted in it.”
Best reflection, eh? I look at the painting again. It shows mother. Dreaded mother. Dead, dreaded mother. A best reflection on that? Give me a break.
“So what? Am I supposed to just tell you about the painting? It’s just a family portrait. I’m standing there sandwiched between Mom and Dad.”
“So what was family life like back then? In the painting you look like you are about … what … twelve maybe?”
“Okay, if that’s what you want. I was twelve when my mother died. This must’ve been set up just before she drowned. I don’t remember Leanne painting it—like us sitting for it or anything, being photographed like that. Did she just do it for the show?”
“I asked her. She said that she’d blocked it out while she was taking care of you three when Jackson and Izzy went to the island, the trip when your mom drowned.”
“Ok, I guess. I do remember that when GJ got particularly obnoxious Auntie would retreat to the back deck, she used the deck as her studio when she took care of us. We weren’t allowed in there when she was painting. It was just screened in back then, not with proper windows and heated like it is now.”
“So what do you remember of that time?”
Really? I’ve no desire to go back, back to …
Hunter stands looking all writerly.
… to spread that memory out, that one, spread it out between us to be written in a book for who-knows-who to read …
He raises an eyebrow as he watches me. Annoying.
… Damn. It’s what he wants, what Leanne wants. Just go along. I take a breath. “Okay, I remember the morning when I heard that mom had drowned.”
My voice comes out softer than I thought it would.
“So that morning, when I came down the stairs, a priest was sitting in the breakfast nook. Now that was fuckin’ strange—a priest in our house. But there he was.
“Auntie told me to come and sit with them. He smelled, that old man sort of smell. Auntie was crying …
“And he was the one who told me …
“And the look on Auntie’s face—mixed up ...
“Like, I guess she wanted to be kind and sympathetic to me as I heard that my mother had died. But mixed in was this dread that she was now stuck with us, stuck with me.”
I look again at the painting. She’s not in it. In all that she did to make our family work back then … and she’s not in the painting. Should‘ve been.
“You see, Auntie took care of us. Mom kept going into hospital—with her nerves, depression I guess. And Dad kept telling me that I had to be nice to her when she got home. Hypocrite. He wasn’t, but he expected us kids to be. Auntie always came when Mom was in the hospital. One summer Mom went away for a few months—she was a photographer, specialized in the Indians. That’s what she called them back then, the Indians. Hope it’s okay to say it that way. You better not write that in your story.
“Anyway, Auntie came and stayed that whole summer. GJ was a holy terror. I remember that. Dad used to come, came to get me out of there because Auntie had her hands full with GJ and Stella was just really little.
“Maybe it was the fall after that summer, or maybe the next, that Mom drowned. I remember it was in the fall.
“Anyway, getting back to the priest. So he was sitting there all religious and old, and I remember that he had this tight collar and his neck kind of bulged out the top of it, like it was too small but he wore it anyway. He told me that my mom had drowned.
“And that’s when GJ came down the stairs, and the priest told him too. So GJ started kicking. He kicked in the refrigerator door. It’s always had that dent in the front—not the one that’s there now, Estelle and Dodi replaced that old fridge when they renovated. But for the rest of the years growing up until I left that’s always where my mind went when I came into the kitchen, to that dent in the refrigerator door.
“Then GJ went out and the priest went after him.”
Hunter glances from me back over to the painting, does so obviously as if that is to be my focus. I have a sense that what I’m telling him isn’t what he’s after. He gets up and leaves the room, leaves the painting of Mom and Dad and us three kids on the easel for me to gawk at.
He comes back with two chairs, sits them for us facing directly toward the painting.
“That’s good, Annalise. That tells the story of what came next. What came before?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just family life. Like I told you, Auntie Leanne took care of us. Mom drank. Dad and I were close. Not close, like, you know, not that yet, eh? Or maybe we were. Anyway. But close in the way that he was always sort of my refuge. He took me to dance—I took classes right from when I was small. I remember that. And that got me out of the house, away from GJ. And I think that Mom liked that, that I wasn’t around to point out how she spoiled GJ. That always bugged me, the way she spoiled him, it seemed so unfair.”
I lean back, the back of the chair feels comfortable. I can look at the painting now, see it in more detail than I saw it before—going into it, coming back out.
I get up, pull my chair closer in. “Look at my face in the painting. It’s the way Auntie would’ve seen me. She was the one who painted it. Whatever. Blank. Empty. Like there’s nothing inside. But my body … In the painting I see myself pulling away from Mom, pulling into Dad. All that was screwed up back then is right there. Dad, he’s touching my hand, like he wants to grab it, hold it. Auntie must’ve seen it back then, when she painted it, knew what was going on.”
Knew it. Didn’t do anything about it.
“What are you feeling, there in the painting?”
His question jerks me back out. “Nothing. Angry.” Too much to say.
“What are you feeling now, now as you look at it?”
“Don’t go all psychologist on me. We’ve got enough of that in the family.”
It shuts him down.
I sit back down, tell myself to get adult again, do what I am supposed to do for Auntie’s book. “The only one who seems to have any life in the picture is GJ. See how he’s looking up at Mom, like he’s talking to her and she’s pulling him in close. And Mom looks like she’s drunk already.”
We sit for a while. I get the sense that Hunter wants to go somewhere and write all this down. I ask, “can you leave the room for a while?”
He does.
It’s just a painting. It’s just a screwed up family. Some of them just dead people now.
I hear him typing on his computer out in the hall, that sound of clicking—going like mad. I imagine him sitting on the floor out there, computer in his lap.
Can’t Leanne leave this alone? All the shit that went on. None of them can. Go back through it all again. Monica says that it’s good for me, to go back, to remember. And she sits there all kind-eyed and professional, and tells me this and that, says that I am resilient and strong, and that I’ll have peace once I deal with this.
Fat lot she knows.
His clicking reminds me of the smell of Auntie’s paints, out there on the back deck, flattening us all into two dimensions to stick on a wall.
I go over and turn the painting backwards on the easel, tighten the hanging wire on the back. That’s better.
I look out the window.
“Just what you remember, Annalise, back to that time in family life, back to when this would’ve been painted.”
I look at Hunter—so earnest, so incredibly awful in what he’s asking for. What the fuck. “Tell me again, what’s this for?”
“I’m writing narratives to go with the seven family portraits. Leanne has a publisher for a book. She’s writing artist statements about the process of painting each of them. But we’re also going to put in a description of the context for each painting according to the best reflection of someone depicted in it.”
Best reflection, eh? I look at the painting again. It shows mother. Dreaded mother. Dead, dreaded mother. A best reflection on that? Give me a break.
“So what? Am I supposed to just tell you about the painting? It’s just a family portrait. I’m standing there sandwiched between Mom and Dad.”
“So what was family life like back then? In the painting you look like you are about … what … twelve maybe?”
“Okay, if that’s what you want. I was twelve when my mother died. This must’ve been set up just before she drowned. I don’t remember Leanne painting it—like us sitting for it or anything, being photographed like that. Did she just do it for the show?”
“I asked her. She said that she’d blocked it out while she was taking care of you three when Jackson and Izzy went to the island, the trip when your mom drowned.”
“Ok, I guess. I do remember that when GJ got particularly obnoxious Auntie would retreat to the back deck, she used the deck as her studio when she took care of us. We weren’t allowed in there when she was painting. It was just screened in back then, not with proper windows and heated like it is now.”
“So what do you remember of that time?”
Really? I’ve no desire to go back, back to …
Hunter stands looking all writerly.
… to spread that memory out, that one, spread it out between us to be written in a book for who-knows-who to read …
He raises an eyebrow as he watches me. Annoying.
… Damn. It’s what he wants, what Leanne wants. Just go along. I take a breath. “Okay, I remember the morning when I heard that mom had drowned.”
My voice comes out softer than I thought it would.
“So that morning, when I came down the stairs, a priest was sitting in the breakfast nook. Now that was fuckin’ strange—a priest in our house. But there he was.
“Auntie told me to come and sit with them. He smelled, that old man sort of smell. Auntie was crying …
“And he was the one who told me …
“And the look on Auntie’s face—mixed up ...
“Like, I guess she wanted to be kind and sympathetic to me as I heard that my mother had died. But mixed in was this dread that she was now stuck with us, stuck with me.”
I look again at the painting. She’s not in it. In all that she did to make our family work back then … and she’s not in the painting. Should‘ve been.
“You see, Auntie took care of us. Mom kept going into hospital—with her nerves, depression I guess. And Dad kept telling me that I had to be nice to her when she got home. Hypocrite. He wasn’t, but he expected us kids to be. Auntie always came when Mom was in the hospital. One summer Mom went away for a few months—she was a photographer, specialized in the Indians. That’s what she called them back then, the Indians. Hope it’s okay to say it that way. You better not write that in your story.
“Anyway, Auntie came and stayed that whole summer. GJ was a holy terror. I remember that. Dad used to come, came to get me out of there because Auntie had her hands full with GJ and Stella was just really little.
“Maybe it was the fall after that summer, or maybe the next, that Mom drowned. I remember it was in the fall.
“Anyway, getting back to the priest. So he was sitting there all religious and old, and I remember that he had this tight collar and his neck kind of bulged out the top of it, like it was too small but he wore it anyway. He told me that my mom had drowned.
“And that’s when GJ came down the stairs, and the priest told him too. So GJ started kicking. He kicked in the refrigerator door. It’s always had that dent in the front—not the one that’s there now, Estelle and Dodi replaced that old fridge when they renovated. But for the rest of the years growing up until I left that’s always where my mind went when I came into the kitchen, to that dent in the refrigerator door.
“Then GJ went out and the priest went after him.”
Hunter glances from me back over to the painting, does so obviously as if that is to be my focus. I have a sense that what I’m telling him isn’t what he’s after. He gets up and leaves the room, leaves the painting of Mom and Dad and us three kids on the easel for me to gawk at.
He comes back with two chairs, sits them for us facing directly toward the painting.
“That’s good, Annalise. That tells the story of what came next. What came before?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just family life. Like I told you, Auntie Leanne took care of us. Mom drank. Dad and I were close. Not close, like, you know, not that yet, eh? Or maybe we were. Anyway. But close in the way that he was always sort of my refuge. He took me to dance—I took classes right from when I was small. I remember that. And that got me out of the house, away from GJ. And I think that Mom liked that, that I wasn’t around to point out how she spoiled GJ. That always bugged me, the way she spoiled him, it seemed so unfair.”
I lean back, the back of the chair feels comfortable. I can look at the painting now, see it in more detail than I saw it before—going into it, coming back out.
I get up, pull my chair closer in. “Look at my face in the painting. It’s the way Auntie would’ve seen me. She was the one who painted it. Whatever. Blank. Empty. Like there’s nothing inside. But my body … In the painting I see myself pulling away from Mom, pulling into Dad. All that was screwed up back then is right there. Dad, he’s touching my hand, like he wants to grab it, hold it. Auntie must’ve seen it back then, when she painted it, knew what was going on.”
Knew it. Didn’t do anything about it.
“What are you feeling, there in the painting?”
His question jerks me back out. “Nothing. Angry.” Too much to say.
“What are you feeling now, now as you look at it?”
“Don’t go all psychologist on me. We’ve got enough of that in the family.”
It shuts him down.
I sit back down, tell myself to get adult again, do what I am supposed to do for Auntie’s book. “The only one who seems to have any life in the picture is GJ. See how he’s looking up at Mom, like he’s talking to her and she’s pulling him in close. And Mom looks like she’s drunk already.”
We sit for a while. I get the sense that Hunter wants to go somewhere and write all this down. I ask, “can you leave the room for a while?”
He does.
It’s just a painting. It’s just a screwed up family. Some of them just dead people now.
I hear him typing on his computer out in the hall, that sound of clicking—going like mad. I imagine him sitting on the floor out there, computer in his lap.
Can’t Leanne leave this alone? All the shit that went on. None of them can. Go back through it all again. Monica says that it’s good for me, to go back, to remember. And she sits there all kind-eyed and professional, and tells me this and that, says that I am resilient and strong, and that I’ll have peace once I deal with this.
Fat lot she knows.
His clicking reminds me of the smell of Auntie’s paints, out there on the back deck, flattening us all into two dimensions to stick on a wall.
I go over and turn the painting backwards on the easel, tighten the hanging wire on the back. That’s better.
I look out the window.