by Clayton Wood
“It’s pretty bad,” she admitted.
“It’s downright horrible,” he countered, making a face.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m getting a headache looking at it,” he added, putting it down and making a point to have the business end face the wall.
“Ha ha,” Bella grumbled. “You know what? I’m just going to throw it in the dumpster. And set it on fire.”
“No no,” he retorted. “Keep it. It’s important to know where you started. That way you’ll always be able to remind yourself of far you’ve come.”
She nodded, and he gazed out of the small window at the far end of the room with a wistful smile.
“I remember my first book,” he mused. “Nearly a year of hard work, slaving over my precious story! I was so proud of it.” He turned to her with an impish grin. “I showed my brother, and he read it from start to finish. Do you know what he said?”
Bella shook her head.
“It’s not good,” he answered. He chuckled at the memory, putting a warm hand on Bella’s shoulder. “He was right,” he continued. “Though I hated to admit it. So I rewrote it. And rewrote it again, and again, and again. Eight times I wrote that book, until I was satisfied with it. Then I had your grandmother read it. You know what she said?”
“What?”
“It’s not good,” he repeated. He cackled then, his eyes lighting up at the memory. “So I wrote it again! And then it was good…or good enough, anyway. My point is, the only way to truly fail is to give up…and most people do.”
“So keep painting,” Bella translated. Grandpa nodded.
“If you want to be something…”
“You have to do it,” she finished. She sighed then, looking around the room. “Guess I’m going to need more canvases.”
“Already ordered,” Grandpa declared with a proud smile. Bella gave him an exasperated look, and he put up his hands defensively. “We have the money,” he insisted. “I’ll have you know I managed to con someone into buying one of my short stories.”
“You did?”
“I did,” he confirmed. “Not for much mind you, but we’ll have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies for another month.”
She smiled at him, giving him a hug.
“I’m proud of you Grandpa.”
He embraced her back, then pulled away, turning back to her most recent painting. He put his hands on his hips.
“I don’t want you painting this stuff anymore,” he declared.
“What stuff?” she asked, taken aback. He gestured at the painting.
“This stuff,” he answered.
“Flowers?”
“Things you see,” he corrected. “Things outside of you. I know painters who spend their whole lives painting like that. What a waste!”
Bella frowned at him.
“So…what do I paint? My internal organs?” The idea suddenly intrigued her.
“Why did you paint the flower?” he countered, ignoring her quip. Her frown deepened. She hated when he answered a question with a question, which he did far too often.
“It looked pretty,” she answered with a shrug.
“Exactly!” he exclaimed. And that’s all someone who looks at it will ever think. Hmm, that’s pretty. I like the way it looks.” He scoffed. “That’s not art, it’s decoration!”
“Okay…”
“If I wrote books that just said: ‘Jack went home. Jack ate dinner. He went to bed. His bed was soft. He fell asleep…’ Would anyone read it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied testily, her hands on her hips. “You’ve never let me read your books.”
“No one would read it!” he answered. “Because I’d just be describing what happened. This, then this, then this. Boring!”
“What does that have to do with my flower?” she pressed.
“You’re just describing the flower with paint,” he explained. “Green stem, a few leaves, nice petals. A flower in bloom. Boring! You need to tell a story.”
“With paint?”
“With paint,” he confirmed. “And those stories aren’t out there,” he added, gesturing at the orchid on the windowsill. They’re in here,” he continued, jabbing a finger at her chest. “Everyone is the main character of their own story…and the story we tell ourselves about ourselves guides everything we do. We can be the hero, the victim, or the villain…and the choice is ours.”
“Okay…”
“Tell me, do you really care about flowers, Bella?” he asked.
“They’re all right.”
“They’re safe,” he corrected. “Painting pretty petals all day. Where’s the risk? You need to paint things you’re afraid of!”
“Like your cooking?”
“Ha!” he replied. “I mean things deep in your heart. Things that matter to you. Secrets you don’t want anyone else to see. Things you don’t want you to see. That’s where real art comes from.”
“Okay…”
“Those canvases,” he added, gesturing at the canvases propped against the walls, “…are mirrors, Bella. They can show you who you are.” He let go of her shoulder, crossing his arms over his frail chest and glaring down at her imperiously. “And you are not a dainty flower!”
She had to smile at that.
“Maybe a black one with thorns,” she conceded.
“Indeed,” Grandpa agreed with a rather rueful smile. He paused then, glancing at Bella’s notebook on the floor beside the easel. He reached down to pick it up, flipping to the last page she’d drawn in and handing it to her. “Or perhaps you could paint this.”
Bella glanced down at the notebook, seeing her latest sketch of her dragon there.
“I’m not ready for that,” she protested. Grandpa frowned.
“Why not?”
“I’m not good enough,” she answered.
“You mean you’re not ready to,” he corrected. “Well, at least promise me that you won’t wait forever to be ready,” he compromised. “Part of getting better is becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
“Alright,” she agreed. “I promise.”
“When I write, I’m like an archaeologist excavating an ancient subterranean tomb,” he declared, pretending to grab a shovel and dig through the floor. “Finding priceless treasures buried deep within the earth! And those treasures are pieces of my heart and mind, lost to the ravages of time.”
“Okay Grandpa,” Bella said. Then she hesitated. “So what should I paint?”
“Something that makes you feel something,” Grandpa answered. “If it makes you feel something, it will make others feel it. That’s the magic of art, Bella. Throwaway art pleases the eye, good art changes people’s minds, and great art…great art opens their hearts.”
* * *
That evening, after cooking Grandpa his favorite meal – chicken and bell-peppers with roasted garlic and caramelized onion – they both got ready for sleep. Bella laid down in her bed, pulling her warm blanket up to her shoulders. Grandpa laid down atop the blanket next to her as he always did, telling her a story. It was the same ritual they’d gone through since…well, for as long as she could remember. He spun a fantastic tale right on the spot, somehow able to craft a different story every night. Extraordinary tales of a world of wondrous magic and vile monsters, valiant heroes and dastardly villains.
Grandpa had never let Bella read any of his books, but if they were anywhere near as good as his nightly tales, it was a wonder that he wasn’t a world-famous author by now.
When the tale was done at last, he kissed Bella on the forehead.
“Goodnight sweetheart,” he murmured, smiling down at her. She smiled back.
“Goodnight Grandpa.”
He got up to leave, but Bella stopped him.
“Wait,” she said. “You…you said Mom was the second-best painter you ever met?”
Grandpa laid back down, turning onto his side to face her.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “She was mag
nificent.”
“Tell me more about her,” she urged. Grandpa hesitated, and she put a hand on his arm. “Please.”
He sighed, lowering his gaze. Grandpa rarely talked about Mom, even when asked. He’d always deflected Bella’s questions by saying he’d tell her when she was older, or that she’d learn soon enough. But “soon enough” had never been soon enough for her.
“All right,” he decided, looking her in the eye. “What do you want to know?”
“What was she like?”
“She was a lot like you,” he answered. “Same eyes, same smile.” He smiled himself. “Her skin was darker, like mine. And her hair was a bit curlier.”
“You’re describing the flower,” Bella accused. Grandpa frowned at her.
“Using my lessons against me, eh?” he groused. “Clever girl. I shouldn’t teach you anything.”
He sighed then, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. Moonlight cast its gentle silver rays on his dark skin, making his eyes glitter. He glanced at her nightstand then, spotting her notebook on it. And the drawing she’d done at school, of her and her dragon. He picked it up, gesturing at it.
“She had the heart of a dragon,” he declared. “And your dragon has her heart,” he added, pointing to the heart-shaped ruby embedded in its breastbone. He glanced down at the amulet Bella still wore around her neck, and Bella did as well, tracing the crack in the middle with her finger. She had no pictures of her mother. Nothing else to remember her by.
The only thing her mother had left her was a broken heart.
“She was like a dragon,” Grandpa mused. “Powerful and fierce. And always there to protect you, even in…”
He swallowed, putting the notebook back on the nightstand.
“Tell me her story,” Bella insisted. Grandpa sighed again.
“I’ll tell you a story,” he decided.
He cleared his throat, then began.
“One day, your mother brought you to the college I was teaching at, at the time,” he began. He’d been an English professor, Bella knew, before he’d been forced to retire. “You were only four then, such a cute little thing.” He smiled at the memory. “You decided on the spot that your favorite place in the whole college was the great library. All the books on the shelves…you ran around, opening them up just to smell them and look at the pictures.”
Bella listened intently, wishing she could remember. She still loved libraries, especially the city library a few blocks down the road, though she’d only been a few times. Back when Grandpa went out more.
“Your mother was strict with you, almost as bad as you are with me,” he continued, giving her a wink. “She wanted to tie you down to the chair next to her while she and I talked. I told her to let you go and explore. That libraries were places of adventure and discovery!” He chuckled. “She said that there still had to be rules. She was very keen on rules, even though she was the very first to break them.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes,” he replied. “She had a rebel’s heart and a mind that was quite the opposite. And the two fought constantly, like an old married couple.”
Bella smiled at that.
“She sounds complicated,” she admitted.
“Oh, you have no idea,” he replied with a chuckle. “In any case, I told her that she’d made a terrible mistake bringing you to a library. Every book there had been written by people who loved to break rules. All the good books, anyway.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said well, then it was a damn good thing you couldn’t read.”
They shared a chuckle, Grandpa’s eyes twinkling at the memory.
“Your mother was something else,” he mused. “I’ve never met anyone like her, other than you of course.” He smiled then. “She could find beauty in the darkest dark, just like you.”
“Did she…fit in?” Bella asked.
“Goodness no,” Grandpa replied. “She refused to.”
“So she was a weirdo?” she pressed. “Like me?”
“Most definitely.”
Bella nodded, then fell silent, chewing at her lower lip. She hesitated, then looked Grandpa in the eye.
“How did she die?”
Grandpa stared back at her, his smile fading. He looked so miserable suddenly that Bella had the urge to take back her question, to tell him it was okay. That he didn’t have to answer. But she held her ground, remaining silent. And that silence stretched out between them, growing bigger and louder with every passing second.
He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The few times she’d asked the question in the past, he’d avoided answering…and made it quite clear without saying it that she wasn’t to ask the question again. But this time was different.
“She died the way she lived,” he answered in a near-whisper. “Beautifully.”
A lump formed in Bella’s throat, and she swallowed past it, not daring to say anything. Grandpa turned to face her, tears wetting his cheeks.
“Your mother was a great artist,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke her hair. “She painted with her heart,” he added, his eyes dropping to the amulet Bella wore around her neck. “But of all the strange and wonderful things she brought to life,” Grandpa continued, “…the greatest of them all was you.”
Bella smiled, her own eyes brimming with moisture. Grandpa leaned in, kissing her on the forehead again, then pulling her head to his chest. She snuggled against his oversized sweater, letting it soak up the tears trickling down her cheeks. He held her for a while, and she closed her eyes, hearing the lub-dub of his heart beating in his chest.
At length he sighed, getting up from the bed and standing over her with a sad smile. Bella couldn’t help but feel disappointed, knowing the story was over.
“Goodnight sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Goodnight.”
He walked around the bed, reaching the doorway and stepping through. He’d almost closed the door behind him when Bella stirred.
“Grandpa?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Why did Mom have to die?”
Grandpa stood there for a long moment, a dark silhouette against the light from the living room beyond.
“She didn’t have to,” he replied at last.
And that was that.
Chapter 3
Weeks passed, the sun rising a little later and falling a little earlier each day. Autumn’s chilly fingers swept through the neighborhood, sucking the life out of everything it touched. Grass yellowed and leaves turned dry and brown, falling from their lofty perches to form a crunchy carpet of corpses below. People combed their precious lawns with rakes, working feverishly to collect the leaves into big piles, bagging them and sending them far away as if they were radioactive. Jack-o-lanterns popped up on porches all over the neighborhood, their faces carved into wicked grins, seeming to relish the stark reality: the year was dying, the great cycle coming to a close once again.
It was Bella’s favorite time of year.
By the last week of October, the first frost gripped the land, coating the streets and grass. A reminder that winter was coming, a Grim Reaper that would blanket the earth with its murderous snow, killing off an entire generation of plants and animals.
And so Bella found herself hopping down from her school bus on a chilly Friday afternoon, landing on the frosty sidewalk with a thump, her backpack bouncing painfully on her lower back. She escaped from the bus as quickly as she could, desperate to leave the school week far behind. Freedom beckoned, and she was eager to answer its call.
She made her way quickly down the sidewalk, leaving most of the other kids behind. No one tried to talk with her, and she didn’t bother to talk to them. She was the weird girl, after all. The quiet girl that kept to herself, holed up in her apartment. Never going over friends’ houses, always reading or doodling. She found the constant chatter of her classmates exhausting after a while, much preferring the quiet of the school library whenever she
got the chance to go there. It was her one safe space outside of her apartment, a place where she could lose herself in books…in the minds of authors like Grandpa, who seemed so wise compared to kids her age…and most adults, for that matter.
Something unusual caught her attention as she walked; two police officers on the opposite side of the road, intercepting a few of the kids as they crossed the street. The officers started talking to the kids, gesturing at the bus.
Huh.
Bella promptly ignored them, keeping her head down and continuing forward. Her apartment building was only two blocks away. She spotted it in the distance, a narrow three-story building with faded yellow paint guarded by a rusty chain-link fence that was clearly not up to its task. It wasn’t long before she reached it. The front gate opened with a loud screech, and she closed it behind her, climbing up the front steps to the porch. She unlocked the front door, propping it open with her foot and checking the mailbox labeled “Brown Family.” Grandpa never checked the mail, of course; that would require leaving the apartment.
Bills, bills, and more bills.
She sighed, stepping inside the apartment and being sure to lock the door behind her. The same routine as always, one drilled into her from the moment they’d moved here nearly a decade ago. Up the spiral staircase she went, reaching the third floor and executing the usual ritual of knocks, followed by Grandpa’s poem.
“A dragon circle,
White and good,
Will one day rise…”
The door flung open before she could finish, and she jumped, nearly falling backward down the stairs. Grandpa burst out of the doorway, grabbing her arm and hauling her bodily into the apartment.
“Grandpa…!” she exclaimed. But he ignored her, slamming the door behind them and feverishly re-engaging the multitude of locks. She backed into the living room, staring at him with wide eyes. He finished, then whirled on her.
“Did they see you?” he asked. It was more a demand than a question. Bella shrank away from him; she’d never seen him like this.
“What?”
“Did they see you?” he repeated. She shrugged helplessly.