Charlotte

12 // a friend named tone.

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12 // a friend named tone.

Thanking God that I only had a 6 hour work shift that day, I retrieved my bag from under the desk and was about to leave when one of my colleagues stopped me in my tracks. 

"Lesra, before you go, Mr. Arnette wanted to see you on the third floor."

I heaved a sigh. Not because my boss wanted to see me for whatever reason it was but because it was the third floor he wanted to see me on.

I thanked the guy and walked up the many stairs.

Mr. Arnette wore a bright red suit and his back was faced towards me as I approached him. I cleared my throat and he turned on his heels to face me. He gave me a sly smile before taking a step back to reveal the painting behind him.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing as one of my very own paintings hung on the wall. My eyes widened and my hands shook at my sides, but not in excitement and I couldn't help but wonder..

"How did you get this?" I looked at my boss suspiciously.

"I found it behind several blank canvases in the back room not so long ago," he answered with a sly smile. "You signed it in the corner so I knew it was yours. But Lesra I mean, I've seen your other work and they're beautiful but this- this blows them all out of the water so I had to mount it and that's why I can't wait to see what you've created for the main piece of this years gallery." He tapped me on the shoulder as a job well done and proceeded down the stairs.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and stepped forward. If this was any other painting of mine, I would be excited and over the moon that my boss decided to hang it up- even if it was without my permission. But this painting struck way too close to home for me.

It was well over a year ago when my phone had rang from inside my pocket. I was here, at the gallery. I had answered and it was my mother. Almost immediately I knew something was wrong in the way she spoke. If she had used that tone with anyone else, they'd think it was her regular speaking  voice but I knew better than that. Her voice quivered and shook slightly as she delivered the words that would alter both of our lives. She tried to sound brave like everything was going to be alright but even she couldn't fake it.

When she told me she was sick, I didn't think much of it. People got sick all the time, even she and I had our fair share of the common flu. But when she told me she was sick with cancer, I almost collapsed right there on the wooden floors of the art gallery. 

"Mom," I had moaned out.

But she didn't stop talking. She told me that the doctors went ahead and even put a time stamp on how long she would have to live. One Year.

I quickly hung up the phone and ran to the storage room. I looked around, my vision was blurred with tears and the first thing I spotted was an empty canvas along with several paint colors on the shelf.

I sat on a wobbly stool and drew a portrait of her. She was young with long dark hair and olive skin. Piercing green eyes were framed with long thick eyelashes and behind her were swirls of blue in three different shades. Portraits were never my specialty but after all the tears had subsided even I was surprised with the end results. I smiled with cracked lips. This was her, my mother, my Charlotte and what I would know of her before Cancer riddled her body. I signed my initials in the corner and wrote her name on the back because I had decided to name it after her.

I had locked myself in the storage room for hours that day and when darkness crept through the small window, I hid the canvas amongst the blank ones and left.