See What I See (9 page)

My hair falls softly around my face, and when I try on the skirt and blouse, I feel transformed. Lila wants to lend me a pair of her four-inch heels, but when I put them on, I wobble and nearly fall over. I promise not to wear my flip-flops though. “And get some polish on those naked toes,” Lila orders. “They're embarrassing.”

I hug her and then Aunt Ernestine. I promise to call Lila and let her know how the date goes. I tell them that in exchange for all they've done for me, I'll bring them a painting.

That Saturday night when I open the front door, there is this tiny, incredibly neat girl, a kind of miniature that you'd keep on a shelf or dangling from a bracelet. She has on a white blouse, with tiny ruffled cuffs around tiny wrists, and a pleated skirt, each pleat perfectly creased. This is never going to work. Dad will brush her away like a bit of fluff. Disappointed, I try to think of polite words to send her on her way, but she walks right up to me, her little shoes tap-tapping, her hand outstretched. I'm actually afraid to close my hand over hers; I might crush it. But her grasp is strong.

“I want you to know,” she says, “how much I appreciate that I can help you out. Momma told me your daddy is a famous artist.” She thrusts a notebook at me. “Could you please sign me in? I've got to keep track of my hours. And don't worry, Momma gave me all the phone numbers in case of an emergency.”

“I'm afraid this isn't going to work out, Ruth,” I say. “My father is a handful, more than you'll be able to manage.”

As if to prove my point, Dad flings open the studio door. “I told you I won't . . .” His mouth snaps shut. Gently he pushes Ruth into his studio and arranges her on a chair. “Sit right there and don't move.”

“Yes, sir.” She seems perfectly content to follow his odd orders.

He gives me a quick glance. “Get out,” he says. “We don't need you.”

Should I leave Ruth with my dad, the artist who turns everything ugly? Ruth is giving Dad a beatific smile. I think she figures she'll get extra points for this.

Before I can debate further, Thomas is at the door. There's a startled look on his face; then he smiles and says, “What happened to the other Kate?”

I realize he hasn't seen me in anything but an old T-shirt and jeans with my hair pulled back. “It's just me,” I assure him, and wriggle my painted toes in the sandals I found at a secondhand store.

I squeeze into his ancient car, which is shuddering and panting like an old dog. Now that we're no longer just a couple of people who ran into each other, both of us are embarrassed and too quiet and then too talkative. We head downtown and park in a lot that borders the river. There are hundreds of people strolling up and down a walk that runs along the river's edge. There are a lot of kids and toddlers in strollers.

A Mexican band is playing salsa. Thomas buys us hot dogs and we sit on a bench and eat them while watching the small boats on the river. The people on the boats wave like mad to the people on shore, and we all wave back. Tonight we are all friends.

When you like someone, you want to bring them into your life, to hurry and tell them all about yourself and find out everything about them. Thomas has never been up north. “You'd love it,” I tell him, and I never stop talking until he's heard about the empty fields around our trailer and the woods and the nearby swamp. “Even on sunny days, it's dark in the swamp. There are cypress trees and tamarack trees that turn gold this time of year, and there are bogs with weird plants, sundews and pitcher plants that eat insects. I've painted them a million times, and though you never see the animals that live in the swamp, you know they're there watching you.”

I tell him about Mom and the fights with Dad and what a raw deal Mom got and how independent she is. I tell him how in the summer Mom had to work at the resort on the weekends because of all the tourists, so we had our Sunday on Monday. We'd sleep in and have a big breakfast and I'd squeeze fresh orange juice and Mom would make waffles. We'd sit outside and read the Sunday papers a day late, and then we'd go for a drive maybe to the sand dunes. We'd eat out, nothing fancy, just pizza or burgers, and when we got back home, we'd empty the sand out of our shoes and brush it from our hair. “I really miss those days, Thomas.”

Thomas tells me about how his relatives are all supporting his med-school education. “We're all one big family,” he says. “What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine. That's the way Chaldeans are.”

“What part of Iraq do Chaldeans come from?”

“Originally from Nineveh, Old Testament country. Remember Babylonia in the Bible? But my own ancestors hailed from a village in Iraq called Telkaif. No one's ever heard of it, but the Iraq War made nearby towns like Mosul and Kirkuk famous.”

A freighter moves silently along the river, all its lights on. It has a festive look, as if it's been lit with candles for a celebration. The violence of a war seems far away. I ask, “So you aren't Muslim.”

“No. We speak Aramaic, the same language Jesus spoke. Dad can speak Arabic because he went to the Iraqi national school. My family is great, but I can't get away from them. I love that closeness, but it seems like they all have a piece of me. They have my life planned. Marry Mary. Be a doctor to Chaldean families. Help send for more relatives. I understand all that. But my life's like a book someone else has written, with no suspense, no need to turn the pages.”

“What would you do if you could do whatever you want?”

“I don't know. One of my friends is heading for Haiti after he graduates. He's going to be working in a hospital for children with disabilities. Another guy is going to Alaska. He'll be a doctor, but he'll be spending a lot of time hunting and fishing too. I'm not saying I want to do stuff like that; I'm only saying I'd like to be able to make a choice.”

“This is America. They can't make you do what you don't want to do.”

“Maybe you noticed the car I'm driving. Over two hundred thousand miles. Bald tires, rust. When I take Mary out, Dad says, ‘Take the new car, Thomas.' That's because he approves of my going out with Mary but not with anyone else. But I won't sneak around. When he asked where I was going tonight, I said I was showing you a little of Detroit.”

“What did he say?”

Thomas looked uncomfortable. “He said, ‘It's a disgrace that at her age her father lets her go out in public with a man.' I said, ‘She's only a kid,' and Dad said, ‘You must be blind.' And I guess I was.”

Thomas puts his hand over mine and takes a nervous look around. He gives me an apologetic smile, “There are Chaldeans everywhere, and they're all related to me.”

We head home. Both of us pull back a little self-consciously with our confidences. I guess neither of us is used to talking about ourselves to someone we hardly know. As he drops me off, there's no “See you next week,” just “Thanks for being a good listener” and “Say hello to your dad.”

Everything is strangely quiet when I walk into the house. I'm drowned in streams of guilt. I shouldn't have left Dad. How has the elf child managed? I see the light under the studio door and open the door an inch at a time. Ruth is still sitting in the chair, a patient smile on her face. Dad swings around and in an accusing voice says, “Back so soon?”

I give a quick, fearful glance at the painting and gulp. A distorted chair takes up almost all of the canvas. It's huge. The slats on the chair back and arms look like the bars of a cell imprisoning Ruth, who sits poised and smiling. It's Ruth's innocence versus the overpowering world.

Dad waves Ruth off the chair. She hops down gracefully and goes over to look at the painting. I hold my breath. After she sees it, will she ever want to come back?

“You got me, all right,” she says, “but you can't paint a chair. You should practice chairs.”

Dad doesn't hear her. He's heading upstairs. I try to pay Ruth, but she won't accept money. Instead she hands me her notebook to mark the time she's leaving. “If I take money,” she says, “the hours don't count. The one who gets the most hours is going to our convention in Chicago this winter.” She turns over the pages so I can see all her good deeds carefully noted like in St. Peter's notebook at the pearly gates. I wonder what Dad would think if he knew he was a good deed.

I pick up my cell and call Mom to tell her about tonight. “You say he's in medical school? How did you meet him?”

I explain about the store.

“Oh, that's right. I was afraid you had met him in a hospital or something.”

“No, everything's fine here.” Under my breath I add,
For the moment
, so it's not a complete lie. “They have a pathway along the river,” I say. “We just sat there and talked.”

“I'm glad you have a friend,” Mom says, “but don't get too involved. You're there to go to school.”

“Yes,” I say.

H
alloween comes and goes. We have our first November snow—city snow, gray and sloppy. We fall into a routine. Dad has a midget breakfast of toast and peanut butter, then disappears into his studio with a mug of coffee. Some days he paints for hours; other days it's quiet in the studio and, when I bring in lunch, I find Dad stretched out on the sofa asleep. But Ian Morgan's in ecstasy. He can't say enough good things about the paintings. We've crated and shipped four more. I can build a crate by myself now.

Morgan calls, and he and Dad talk about lighting and space. I learn that in hanging pictures, the space between the paintings is almost like its own painting, and you have to think about that too. Dad gets emails from Morgan telling him how he has lined up this critic and that one to be at the opening. He's assuming Dad will be there, but I know he won't be strong enough. Even going up the stairs is too much for him now, so I've made up the couch in the studio as a bed. The old sofa with its worn upholstery and sagging springs has taken on a new importance, done up in white sheets and a pink blanket. Dad shrugs off not being at the opening. “My absence will create a stir, a nice bit of gossip. That's good for business. The critics can make up stories about me. They love stories.”

Sometimes Dad still flies into a rage. “Go home!” he screams at me. “I can't work with you here. You're nothing but a leech. All you're interested in is what you can get out of me, living in my house, eating my food, watching me paint so you can steal my technique.” He slams the door of the studio, and I hear him inside muttering. I know when he yells that he's having trouble with one of his paintings and someone has to be blamed, but it's so unfair. I want to storm into the studio and remind Dad about all I'm giving up to take care of him. But I have to admit that a lot of what he says is true. I am living in his house and eating his food, and when he's in the mood, he does teach me. And that's so amazing. One day I learn about glazes, how one thin translucent layer of paint laid over another and another can build a depth of color. I learn to avoid fussiness. Every detail is there because it's building the story of the painting. If it's not necessary, you have to get rid of it. You have to be ruthless. I learn composition and how to make people look at what you want them to look at in a painting. How powerful is that!

I take everything I learn and apply it to my own work. I've driven back to Belle Isle often for inspiration. The weather is cold now, and I seldom see anyone there. It's like the whole island has been picked up and shaken until it's empty of everything but the geese. The leafless trees, the bare willow tendrils blowing in the wind, the deserted beaches, and the picnic table with a cloth of snow. I take all the emptiness home and paint it, stealing everything I've learned from Dad.

I long to show him my work, but after the last time I'm terrified that he'll tell me again how bad it is and that I'll lose faith in what I'm doing.

The worst days are when Dad has an appointment with the doctor. He makes excuses. He's not well enough to go, or he's got to finish a painting while the idea is still clear in his head, or the doctor is a fool and doesn't know anything. Dad slams doors, refuses to dress; and when we finally get to the doctor's office, he won't answer the doctor's questions. Luckily Dr. Aziz is an older man and he's seen it all, so Dad's churlishness doesn't faze him. Somehow he's learned that Dad is a well-known artist. I'm sure it's from Thomas. They must have talked when Dad was in the hospital. The doctor puts up with Dad, humors him, and treats him like he's something between a mad genius and a spoiled child.

The trip we made to the doctor today has exhausted Dad. When we get home, he lies down and I know he'll sleep the rest of the afternoon. I need Lila's cheeriness. It's been weeks since I've seen her.

“Come on over, girl. I've got a surprise for you.”

When I pull up in front of her aunt's house, I see that next to the alterations notice there's a new sign:
LILA'S ATELIER
. Aunt Ernestine is busy at work, but she looks up when I walk in. “Kate, honey, how are you doing? How's that grandpa of yours?”

Before I can answer, Lila grabs me and pulls me into the dining room, only it isn't a dining room anymore. She's got skirts and blouses displayed, some on racks, some hanging by hooks on the walls. They're all a swirl of prints and bright colors. It's an exotic bazaar. A couple of girls are behind a screen, giggling and trying on clothes.