The Wideness of the Sea by Katie Curtis

Author:Katie Curtis [Curtis, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Piscataqua Press
Published: 2017-06-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“Go pick some tomatoes from the garden, would you honey?” her mother said, laying down brushes and opening paints on the table in the barn. Her white linen shirt looked cool in the heat of the sun, and the humidity had made the dark hairs around her face curl up.

“Yes, mom,” Anna replied, her eleven-year-old eyes shining brightly in anticipation of what was to come.

She went behind the barn where the garden grew, and before she could even reach the lush, verdant postage stamp of earth, she could smell the tomatoes. The fragrance was like an invisible liquid in the air, heavy like golden honey, yet still ethereal, like a cobweb, like lace. When Anna picked the round red fruit, the scent intensified, and she loved that where her fingers had brushed the plant, the smell would linger for hours, allowing her the pleasure of drinking it in again and again.

She brought the tomatoes around to the barn, and her mother set them in a bowl. “Ok, sweetheart. We already prepped our canvases yesterday with the burnt sienna background and the white table cloth in the foreground. Now we’re just going to paint the tomatoes. First we’re going to mix our colors. Find the combination of red and yellow and white that matches what you see. And let’s do a little green for the stem, too.” Her mother held her palette and made tiny pools of mixed shades, circles of red and orange and dark green.

Anna went into her head, focusing on the colors before her, and on the white spot on the fruit where the light hit it first. Her mother gave her pointers every so often, tips for capturing a feature of the tomatoes on the table. An hour passed in what felt like a minute to Anna. As she worked, she noticed the metallic smell of the paint mixed with the fragrance of the tomatoes, and the smell from the grass outside as the summer sun scorched it. This must be what happiness smells like, she thought.

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