See What I See by Gloria Whelan

Author:Gloria Whelan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 8

Dad doesn’t get up today. When I take him breakfast, he waves it away, keeping only the coffee. I notice that his skin, and even the whites of his eyes, is tinted pale yellow like a late-afternoon sun. Cadmium yellow light hue to cadmium yellow medium. “How do you feel?” I ask, and he responds by ordering me out of the room.

I call Erlita’s cell. “That’s just part of the illness, honey. You got to expect ups and downs. He short of breath?”

I think of how he shouted at me. “No,” I say.

“That’s good. I’ll be by tomorrow.”

I want to get out my paints, but somehow Dad’s not painting makes it impossible for me to work as well. It’s like we’re tied together. I don’t want that. I get busy with Dad’s emails. I compose an encouraging reply to Ian Morgan’s one-word query, “When?” by telling him Dad’s making great progress, but he wants everything to be perfect. Immediately Morgan shoots back an answer as if he had been sitting at his computer waiting for my response. Maybe he has. “I’m not interested in perfection,” he sends. “I’m interested in the art of the possible.”

I check the back porch. The cat food is gone this morning, and I see tufts of cat hair caught on the mat outside the door. I don’t know why I’m so pleased.

Dad’s back in his studio. He hasn’t bothered to shave and he’s barefoot. I tell him what Morgan said. “Can’t we just send a couple of pictures to keep him satisfied?” I ask.

“They’re not ready.”

I know he’ll be furious with me, but I home in on two paintings that look finished. “Why couldn’t you send these?”

“If you think you can tell me when I’m finished with a painting, you can go back to your wilderness.” But I see he’s considering what I’ve said. He goes up to his room and comes back with a fleece jacket.

Dad says, “If you’re so anxious to send these off, you can give me a hand.” I take one painting and he takes the other himself, shuffling ahead of me to the garage, where he’s set up a kind of carpentry shop.

“When you start out,” Dad says, “you’d better be able to knock your own frames together and know how to ship your pictures. There won’t be any money to have someone do it for you.”

I’m amazed he’s talking with me as if I’m really going to be an artist one day and need to know these things. Is he actually taking me seriously?

We wrap the two paintings carefully and crate them. I hand and hold. He pounds and saws. He likes what he’s doing, and I remember he started out as a carpenter during his early years in construction. What would have happened if he’d kept on with that instead of becoming an artist? Would building a house give him the same satisfaction as completing a painting? Just before he pounds in the final nail, he has a change of heart.

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