Memories Of My Skin by Katherine Dahlquist-Bauer

Author:Katherine Dahlquist-Bauer [Dahlquist-Bauer, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ONDALY
Published: 2024-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eighteen

Ashamed of my shame in front of my family and too ashamed to admit to Sissy they were my family, I compensated by sharing sweet sex I’d learned from women whose names I’d forgotten or never learned. When Sissy offered to return my favors, I whispered she should sleep, with which she seemed content, and once she was snoring, I snuck out to my studio and dozed off with a brush in hand.

The ashes of Eleanor’s skin had risen, and from them burned a passionate piece of near abstraction, every stroke a flame of her heart or a flicker of her wit, the colors so intense anyone save me would not have recognized them and their shapes as Eleanor’s bones and blood as I passed the days playing with her forms.

At dinner, my mind lingered beside them, my body existing between Emily and Sissy’s conversations that seldom addressed the life budding inside Sissy’s body.

Sissy’s mind wasn’t settled, and so long as it didn’t need to be, neither Emily nor I would pressure her.

One morning, after a long night of painting, I woke to blinding sunshine sneaking through the curtains. The paint had dried under my fingernails. Splotches stuck to my skin.

I made a half-hearted effort to tidy up before going downstairs for coffee, which fueled the continuation of the painting.

My shoulders jumped when I entered the kitchen.

A young, tanned cowboy was sipping the last of a café americano as he covered his disheveled hair with a hat.

“Miss Kunz,” he nodded politely as he placed the cup in the dishwasher.

I barely managed a good morning as he brushed past, leaving traces of Emily’s perfume.

Emily emerged from her room with her hair less carefully brushed than usual and her smile more secretive.

“You’re up early,” she said as she took his place by the espresso machine.

“Has he been here all night?” I asked, trying to remember what had happened after dinner. I’d gone up to my studio after dessert without seeing Sissy or Emily again.

“No. He comes in early to milk the goats.”

“We have goats?”

“I have goats. Haven’t you noticed on your jogs? They’re next to the barn.”

“Have I been missing the fact that he’s here the whole time?”

“You don’t wake up very early, and he doesn’t come every day.”

She switched on the machine, silencing my questions with its gurgling.

When she slid me my cappuccino, I wrapped my fingers around the mug, curious how many empty coffee cups I’d overlooked in the dishwasher.

“He has to be younger than I am,” I noted.

Emily scoffed. “Says the woman sleeping with a teenager.”

“That’s different! I’m not …”

“Old?” She offered.

“I didn’t say that.”

She glanced at my hands and narrowed her eyes at the sticking paint but didn’t say anything as she pulled out the pans.

There were goats by the barn.

Years ago, there had been cows, but they’d been moved after what happened with Eleanor.

I’d known the cows were gone. The goats shouldn’t have shocked me. They were just goats, and that cowboy was just a fuck.

I pulled the newspaper from its sleeve, glancing at the headlines.

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