I said, “You’re just telling us now? Since when did Dad want to paint?”
“Since . . . I don’t know. It was his big retirement plan: paint every day, all day. The place is a mess, but he doesn’t mind squalor. I mean, it’s artistic squalor. With oil paint, there’s no easy cleanup.”
“You’ve been there?”
“I helped him choose it. Correction: he allowed me to come along when he was being shown some garrets.”
Joel said, “Well! Don’t Faith and I have the most evolved parents! I guess we shouldn’t have been worried about you and blaming Dad and, let’s be honest, thinking he had a girlfriend—”
“Or a boyfriend,” I added.
We were at my mother’s kitchen table, drinking sherry from cordial glasses, the only alcohol on hand. “He says it’s all about painting,” she said. “I have a spouse who’s married to his art.”
“And how are you doing with this?” I asked.
“I’m adjusting. It might be a phase he’s going through. Remember when he threw himself into golf? I was a golf widow for two straight summers. Now he doesn’t even go to the driving range.”
Joel said, “All of a sudden the father I’ve known for thirty-four years is a painter?”
“Do you know what abstract expressionism is? I believe that’s the term he used.”
Joel asked me—or did I ask him?—“Is it possible for two adult children not to know that their father is an abstract expressionist?”
“How could you have known? I don’t think he even knew,” our mother said.
“Have you seen his work?” I asked.
“Pictures of it. He e-mails me a photo when he finishes one.” Less than eagerly, she asked, “Would you want to see some?”
Joel said, “I’m not sure.”
I said, “I would.”
As soon as she left the room, he whispered, “They could be shit.”
She returned holding snapshots, three by fives, one in each hand. “I get these made up from his e-mails,” she said. “They do that at CVS while you wait.”
She gave one to each of us. Mine was a photo of an easel, on which sat a small unframed canvas depicting a gold square sitting on top of an orange square with a horizontal crimson stripe between them. Joel and I swapped; the other was orange on top of purple with a turquoise stripe between. I said, “I like these. They look happy.”
“Why wouldn’t they? Happy painter, happy paint.”
Joel emitted something like a hmmmff.
“Is this public knowledge?” I asked. “That he paints? Can I tell him we saw these?”
Our mother asked, “How about this: I’ll tell Norman Rockwell that I showed you two pictures from his Orange Suite, and you really liked them. Is that an accurate statement—that you like them?”
I said yes. Joel took another look, and said, “Okay, me, too.”
I asked her when the artist was next coming to dinner.
She squinted in the direction of the wall calendar, each month showcasing another dairy product from the local creamery. “I invited him for Friday, for beef Stroganoff, but he hasn’t confirmed.”
“If it’s on, could we come, too?”
“I can’t on Friday. I have a date,” said Joel.
Of course, that triggered the instant engagement of my mother’s and, to an only slighter degree, mine.
“Is it someone new?” she asked.
“It’s always someone new,” I said.
I texted Stuart about the discovery: Mystery solved. Dad left bec he wants 2 paint. oil on canvas, abstract, mom OK w it so way better than I thought. Miss u.
I didn’t like using the abbreviations of a twelve-year-old, but Stuart believed it was stuffy to spell things out if you could get by with less, just like in life. He texted back the next morning, Was this 4 me?
6
Pointers
WHEN IT CAME TO Joel’s social life, sometimes my mother and I could hover. Especially me, since I was subletting a one-bedroom apartment two floors above his until I took possession of my bungalow. He’d been married at thirty and divorced a year later, the innocent party, which I say not out of blind loyalty but as fact. He had the bad luck to fall for an adultery-prone woman named Brenda, whom the rest of the family considered unworthy.
I’d love him to meet someone deserving of his big unlucky heart. He isn’t the most conventionally attractive or fittest guy in the world, but for those who notice, his face wears his goodness quite handsomely.
Growing up only eighteen months apart, our solicitousness is a two-way street. The same night I told him about what I called our engagement and what Stuart characterized as “our promise,” Joel asked for the play-by-play. “Set the stage for me,” he said, taking a first sip from his dessert, a chocolate martini. “It’s research, in case I meet someone. All pointers welcome.”
I tasted his drink then ordered one of my own. “It happened the night before he left on his quest. We were having takeout from Peaceable Nation at my place, and we’d had a bottle of wine. And he quite literally asked for my hand. ‘Right? Left?’ I asked. First he snapped off a piece of the fringe from the scarf he was wearing—red cotton, made in India—then took my left hand and tied the thread around the fourth finger.
“I said, ‘Is this what I think it is?’
“?‘It’s a placeholder.’
“?‘For . . .’
“?‘For when I’m back.’
“?‘And then . . .’
“?‘We’ll be together, under one roof.’ He patted my hand. ‘Good fit? Not too tight?’
“I said, ‘It’s perfect. A metaphor.’ I wanted to ask whether the ‘under one roof’ meant as husband and wife, or just roommates. But I didn’t want to spoil the moment. Instead, I asked, ‘Would it be okay if I replaced it with something a little sturdier?’
“He told me that was his intention, of course; that’s what he meant by ‘placeholder.’ He said the red was no accident, that it had major symbolic heft in many religions and cultures.