A Gift for My Sister: A Novel

by Ann Pearlman

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Connectedness of It All

  Sky

  THE SUN WAKES me, blasting through the window. It hits my eyes so intensely that there’s deep red behind my lids. I open them to see the sun peering over a peak. We’re in a valley surrounded by mountains. It was so dark when we drove in last night, or rather, early this morning, that we bumped blindly along a rutted road with only glints of barbed wire visible on either side. A horse stared back at me. It was a pinto, so only the white spots seemed to exist and, when I first saw it, I couldn’t tell what the collection of random splotches were. Then a white eyelid blinked, and I recognized the shine from the eye and the horse assembled itself.

  The horse came back to me in a dream last night.

  Rachel is beside me, her arm thrown across my body.

  I look around the room we staggered into late last night. Its walls are adobe, painted a soft pink. Large squares of sandy tiles cover the floor. Outside, by the window, a small bird pecks at the seeds in a bird feeder hung from a tree branch.

  I get up, grab my toiletry case, and stumble out of the room into a long hallway with rooms on either side, and finally find a bathroom at the end.

  Afterward, I wander through the house. No one else is awake. I discover the kitchen, and a pot of coffee brewed and still warm. The kitchen is lined with cabinets and a wall oven. An island stretches down the middle of it with a sink and stove top, the backsplash clad in tiles of colorful animals among huge flowers.

  I pour a cup of coffee, slip my arms in my hoodie, and go outside. Shadows stretch from the mountain across a prairie composed of brittle stalks of weeds. The horse I saw last night, a mare, smashes the earth with thick hoofs. Beside her, a black colt watches me with interest and switches its tail. The grazing mare lifts her head and whinnies, and her eyes—one surrounded by white, the other black—imbue her with a cockamamie appearance. A stark contrast to the ghostly, otherworldly creature she was last night. Staring at me, she strides to the edge of her field and lifts her muzzle.

  I walk toward her and touch her nose, surprisingly soft skin dotted with prickly whiskers. She nuzzles my hand hoping for a treat, but I have none.

  Then she pushes my shoulder with her nose in an affectionate nudge.

  “That’s Mija.”

  I turn to see a tall man wearing a cowboy hat over his long gray hair. He has sharp features and piercing eyes.

  Mija prances, rearing to paw her front legs in the air, and then trots back and forth in front of the fence, her tail arched, strands flowing like feathers.

  The man pulls a carrot from one pocket and gives it to her, his other hand gently stroking her forehead and velvet nose. She eats the carrot and lifts her head over the fence to woo the man closer for a hug. She whinnies to him, her nostrils trembling.

  I didn’t know horses could love people. It never occurred to me that a horse could love.

  Then, her colt trots toward the man and he pulls out another carrot, a smaller one, and gives it to him, playing with the colt’s ear as he chomps.

  The man turns to me, rubs his palm down the leg of his jeans, and says, “I’m David. We were half asleep when you rolled in. Assume Allie got you all settled.”

  “I’m Sky.” I shake his warm hand.

  “You must be the sister with the daughter. Two beautiful sisters. One with a handsome son, the other with a wonderful daughter. What a blessing.”

  Mija dances for his attention.

  “Quite a namesake,” he says, looking up to study the sky.

  I glance at the stretching heavens and realize for the first time that it’s paler near the horizon and almost indigo straight above, a myriad of blue shades. The sun flashes, blinding white.

  “The stars have finished singing together and conjured the beautiful morning,” he says, his face turned up. “Come on. You can help me feed the donkeys.”

  Behind the house, in another field, is a barn stacked with hay. Two donkeys walk across the field toward David and me.

  He flips open the latch and a fat donkey ambles over. David pats his head, then pulls down a bale with a hook, slits the jute strap, and tosses the hay in a feeder against the wall. David hands me a gallon jug to scoop up oats and I load a container with them. And then he fills a trough with water. By now, another donkey has arrived to watch us.

  “That’s Mohammed. This one is Happy Buddha.” David tilts his head toward one with a belly almost dragging on the ground. “They’re still working on deciding the future of the world and the meaning of life.” He chuckles, and his hollow voice sounds as though it’s coming from a whirlwind or a tornado. I check his throat to see if he’s had some sort of operation that gives his voice an echo. There’s just a grizzled neck with a prominent Adam’s apple, not even the usual assortment of drapes and wrinkles seen on older men.

  He’s a handsome man, I notice, sinewy and hard, the Marlboro man with a gentle compassion evident when he touches his animals.

  A flock of white doves zooms from the barn’s attic. Each bird soars, providing a vivid contrast against the deep blue sky. The birds flip and soar with silent wings and extend across the sky as though performing a choreographed ballet.

  I smell sage, hay, and some sweet, musky aroma I can’t identify.

  David scans the sky, watches Happy Buddha and Mohammed nuzzle their oats, and then Mohammed rubs his chin on Happy Buddha’s back.

  “See,” David points, “you have to look quick or you miss it,” A prairie dog lifts its head from the ground, its paws praying. It chirps and flashes back to its earthy home. A large dog comes over to David and sits beside him. “This is Misty.” David’s hand automatically goes to her head.

  “I thought it was a coyote.”

  “Almost, but no. Found Misty at the Humane Society.”

  I realize then that I slept through 3:42. Had we arrived by then, or were we still in the car? I don’t know. But I see the sky this morning and the glory of its colors and the peace of the animals and their love for this man, their caretaker.

  “You like art? Want to see my studio?” he asks, jumping to a new topic.

  There are no other houses that I can see, just a valley enclosed by mountains and fences partitioning the land. A scattering of buildings and the adobe house. We walk behind the barn and there’s another wooden building, mostly windows, with a porch.

  Inside, a hundred brushes hang from hooks along one wall. A huge easel with a blank canvas sits beside them. Behind it, a painting of the land in rich colors leans against the wall. It reveals a cross section into the earth so that you see roots searching for nutriments, the plants reaching for sun and rain. The scene pulses with a sense of the continuity of the earth, the roots, the green plants, the treasures of water and light.

  The painting shows snow flittering like diamonds, clustered in furrows, and I can almost see it melting to nourish the plants.

  “We got our first snow last week, but it only lasted a few hours. The sun melted it and the earth sucked it up. Now it exists on in that painting.” He points a thumb at it.

  The brush handles are twigs with their bark peeled off, or hand carved with emblems. A varied collection of hairs shaped into points and fans and wedges form the tips. Some are tiny as an eyelash, others as thick as three fingers.

  He notices that I’m staring and says, “I make my own brushes. Mija and Happy Buddha contribute the bristles along with Wisdom, my male goat, who’s getting busy with the lady-goat in town.”

  I reach out to touch them and then stop myself. “May I?”

  “I’m glad my brushes inspired you to talk. That’s the first thing you’ve said.” Relief is apparent in his voice.

  I guess it is.

  David says with a shrug, as though it’s obvious and no big deal, “I like to make things. I need to make things. I can’t stop my hands. So in between paintings I make brushes, or build houses and work on my koi pond.” He says this as information rather than explanation. It is what it
is. He is what he is. It’s all so simple.

  I walk to the paintings leaning against the wall. Next to the one I first saw is a blue one and he’s picked up all the subtle shades, swirled them around in spirals reaching each other as though the sky itself is about to birth the sun. A dove’s white wing tips the corner as it flies to another world.

  “David? David?” I hear Allie. We look out the studio door and Allie holds Rachel’s hand. Tara, Levy, Aaron, and Smoke are behind her. Happy Buddha walks behind Levy, pushing his back with his nose as though herding him toward David. These strangers are interlopers in his field.

  They enter the studio. Rachel runs to me, and I pick her up and kiss her while the others examine David’s paintings as he pulls finished canvases from the stacks. David and Allie have the same bright eyes, though David’s are darker and more intense. Their arms and torsos are the same proportion and their hands and forearms almost identical, though David’s obviously are larger. I wonder if Tara and I look alike in ways I have never appreciated because I focus so much on our differences.

  David’s many paintings are stacked against the wall opposite the brushes, and Tara and I begin to look at them. We flip through seasons. The snow grows on the mountain, eagles hunt in the depth of winter, glistening hail pounds the ground, twigs and buds are reborn in blood red. And of course people. Some with weathered faces I don’t know, Allie’s face with a smile, Allie’s daughters.

  “Do you, like, sell these?” Tara asks.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes in Santa Fe and sometimes in New York. Sometimes not.” And he laughs with that reverberating hollowness.

  “David is a big-time artist, the artist of the decade back in the late eighties when SoHo was popping,” Allie says. “He made enough money to buy this part of the mountain and built this house mostly with his own hands.”

  “Got tired of the pressure of the marketplace, that subtle comment from a gallery pushing for paintings done this way or that way because they sell. I loved to paint, just to paint. Paint and make things. An artist finds his vision, his voice, and communicates it whether it’s heard or not. Now I paint what I want, when I want. I carve and form brushes or dig a koi pond or plant a willow if I feel like it. Take Mohammed and Happy Buddha for a walk up that mountain.” David waves out the window to a mountain graced with a snow hat.

  Tara has no makeup on, and I notice yellow flecks in the brown of her eyes as she listens to him. Her head is tilted, a gesture that indicates how focused she is. Then her eyes search for Aaron, who’s been watching her. When their eyes meet, they glance away, and Tara steps closer to Levy.

  “David.” Allie sounds almost motherly.

  “I like to show people how I see this world. It’s in these paintings. The connectedness of it all.”

  Smoke goes to the wall where the brushes hang and starts asking questions about drying time for the wooden handles, and what glue David uses to affix the twine holding the bristles to the shaft. Sometimes David has pounded out small wraps from various metals. Smoke makes his own drums, and the two of them end up in a discussion about the pros and cons of various animal skins.

  I listen to all this talk about processes I’ve taken for granted. Things get made and you buy them in stores. Food wrapped in plastic, clothes hanging on racks, already produced and waiting to be bought. I pay attention to merchandise that’s part of my lifestyle. Appropriate work clothes. Appropriate party clothes. Comfortable furniture that’s easy to maintain and doesn’t show the grime of children’s fingers. I guess it’s surprising I never thought about it, because Mom made macramé necklaces and plant hangers and sold them in art fairs. But David, he makes because he has to, just like Tara has to make music.

  Mohammed and Happy Buddha stand at their gate watching us stroll toward the house. On the way, we pass a koi pond fed by a small waterfall. The scales of fat orange, white, and pinto fish blaze in the water.

  David puts his hand in the pool and fish surround it. “You ever pet a fish?” he asks Levy, who solemnly shakes his head no. “Go ahead, Sunshine loves to be petted and she’s never gotten a blessing from a child.”

  Levy gingerly puts his hand in the water and an orange fish slides its body against his fingers.

  “Me, too,” Rachel says as she kneels next to David, her fingertips skimming the water. She strokes the fish’s face with the same gentle attention that she gives to patting people’s cheeks. The touch she gave her father’s face in the computer the day before he died.

  The fish glides back and forth for her compassion and tenderness.

  The garden around the house is in its winter dress. Visible are a few berries left on twigs that birds have forgotten, dried stalks of hollyhocks laden with seeds, and the earth getting ready for the next spring.

  David stands. “Amazing, isn’t it, this world that we have, and all we have to do to enjoy it is use our senses. Happy Buddha hasn’t told me the meaning of life yet, but for me it’s just this . . . ,” he sweeps his arms around the valley, “in all its wonder. This planet we’ve been given. There isn’t any why or fairness . . . we are all simply lucky to be born, lucky to be given this day, this breath. Every day I wake up honored. Every day I have life.”

  I gaze at the earth and a prairie dog pops up, looking right at me. We stare at each other until Aaron joins me. Then, the critter barks and flickers into his hole.

  “Reminds me of Detroit.” Aaron looks around the plain with the mountain in the distance.

  I turn to him and notice he’s grown a mustache that makes his lips appear tender. “How so? I can’t imagine anything more different.”

  “When I was a kid, I snuck up on the roof. Wrote. Fed the pigeons that hung out there. Up there, I was surrounded by sky, like here, and the tops of the other buildings, like the mountain.” He nods at the peak in the distance. “The noise was blunted. The city was below me, all the cars doing their business. Like those prairie dogs with their mounds of dirt fortification.” He rocks back on his heels. “It feels the same. They both offer a glimpse of what’s big and what’s small.”

  “You’re figuring out Tara.”

  “Soon as I think I understand her, she does something that changes that.”

  “Me, too, and I’ve known her all her life.”

  He faces me now, his black eyes gleaming. “She tries to make sure she gets what she wants and is afraid to let anyone know what it is.”

  “I know she loves you. You wouldn’t know it, because she hides it so well, but she’s scared.”

  “I do know it.” He shakes his head. “But she could tear down all the wonders we’ve created. Our family,” and he points to Levy playing with the crew kicking a clod back and forth, and the tour bus. He shrugs one shoulder. “We’ll be okay though.”

  He’s thought this through. “You plan ahead,” I comment.

  “Nothing would be the same.” His voice softens and he looks away as though to hide his eyes.

  “Yes. I know.”

  He touches my arm. “You do.” We stand side by side, facing the mountain, the top covered with snow, the pigeons dancing in the blue.

  Aaron clears his throat. “You keep going and maybe that’s the best anyone can do. Troy was a special dude. Helped me, too, by talking about protecting us legally and getting Larry to manage a good deal. Don’t think I’m not appreciative. Troy, he treated everyone like human beings; he took care of his people.”

  I was lucky to have known Troy, lucky that he loved me.

  Before we leave, David returns to his studio and brings out the sky painting. “You need this. Contemplate infinity in the moment, in this small square of it.” He hands it to me, and observes as I put it in the back of the U-Haul.

  “Remember to fly, Sky. Fly.”

  I get chills. How did David know to say that?

  He waves to us as we drive away, Misty sitting next to him. Mija prances beside us, escorting us down the road.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Slightly Tarnished


  Sky

  THERE ISN’T ANY why or fairness . . . we are all lucky to be born, lucky to be given this day, this breath. David’s hollow voice resonates in my mind as Smoke and I drive to Oklahoma City. The mountains diminish and a familiar flatness, interrupted by rolling hills, begins. Gigantic pieces of tires litter the road. We’ve seen them all along I-40, chunks of exploded tires lying torn, still curved and patterned, on the shoulder of the road. Sometimes we have to drive around them, because they’re in the highway, bending toward us with tarry claws.

  I consider the luck of simply being born, of being plucked out of the cosmos and bestowed with eyes to see, and nerves to feel, and ears to hear. Our senses. Our speech. Our breath. How crucial and insistent our ceaseless moving lungs are from our first cry to our last. I remember my exhilaration at Rachel’s first cry and see, as I have countless times since it happened, her lying breathless on the side of the pool.

  But we’re greedy. I’m greedy. I want more. Everything I always thought I’d have. Houses and jobs and success. People. Troy. Rachel. I feel gratitude about life but assume my rewards.

  Losses build resentment. And gratitude for life turns to selfishness.

  The green increases and then disappears as we hit the flat of Texas.

  No farms. Scattered cattle off in the dry shrubby field. Advertisements for strip clubs before every exit.

  I try to stay positive. I stop the image of Troy that fades before my eyes. Sharp points of windmills whirl, the blades sawing through the air. I can’t hear them over the exaggerated sound of our tires hitting bumps in the road.

  Even Smoke, beside me, isn’t soothing. It’s a long drive and he wanted help. We’re taking I-40 straight east from near Santa Rosa through Amarillo to Oklahoma City. A quick concert there and the next day on to Memphis. Two days in Memphis. Now I know the itinerary for the long road home.

  We pass a black billboard that announces Hell is Real in white letters, except for the H, which is bright red.