To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter Six: It's a Metaphor

Beck stopped to read the plaque when we entered. He meandered down the hall, taking in each one in a determined zig zag. Simon didn't even glance at the plaque; he barely turned to look at the art that beckoned on the walls. Instead, a subtle look of irritation grew across his face.

"Beck, this tour will never end if you stop for every single one," Simon scolded, moving frustratedly down the hall in choppy steps behind him. Beck looked back, almost bashful as Simon barely avoided running into him.

"Sorry. Just taking a look at what we're guarding. We can move on."

"Don't be sorry." I shook my head, stepping up behind them. "You should know what you're guarding. More than just a vague idea of what it looks like. It will also help you know if something's different or out of place. But there's nothing wrong with just wanting to look at it. It's here to be seen."

Simon shifted beside me, but I kept my eyes on Beck, who shot me a crooked, grateful grin.

"Thank you. Last time I was here, the crowds sort of carried us along. We didn't get a lot of time to spend with the works. But still, let me know if we need to move a little faster. I can always just look up them up online," Beck admitted. I shook my head again.

"Online pictures won't capture it completely. Just look and don't worry about it. You're here, so why waste the opportunity? My job is to show you the exhibits until Owen is ready to meet. Not just the layout, but what we're here for. We're here for this." I gestured to the walls.

"For half-finished works?" Simon asked abruptly. He gazed uninterested and almost accusingly at the closest painting.

"Half-finished? None of these are incomplete."

"Then where are the birds?"

Simon waved his hand at the missing parrot, and my brow raised, arched in pointed accusation.

"You didn't read the name of this setup, did you?"

Simon's lips flattened in retaliation. "Care to enlighten me?"

His eyes were challenging as they met mine, his face hard and unflinching at my steady stare. I crossed my arms before my chest, my own expression falling into schooled stone. If it was a game, he would know I excelled at it. If it wasn't, he'd learn anyway.

"'Assimilation'. Works by Gabriella Chavez, an immigrant who moved to a new country as an adult," I informed, coating my words with an entitled air I refused to shake. "It's titled 'Assimilation'."

Something flared in those tar eyes before Simon turned completely to the wall, his back to me and his shoulders stiff. I couldn't see his face anymore, and was unable to tell what he was thinking. What would I see if I could? Embarrassment? Defiance? Shame?

"A loss of color," Beck acknowledged from across the hall. Beck's eyes were glued to the watercolor jungle and the draining frame of one of the pigeons. He slowly turned to me with a knowing gaze and a blink of dazed solidarity. "A loss of identity."

I nodded slowly. "She made herself a blank slate to fill with the materials of her surroundings, and lost who she was in the process. It's about losing yourself to fit in, whether in a new country or a new street." I turned to another painting, looking at the scratchy lines that somehow portrayed a pigeon's loneliness and confusion. The sketches of a city bird lost in a 'lion-eat-lion' world and feeling impossibly out of place. I couldn't personally relate with the journey and trials of immigration, but art was about empathy.

Life was about empathy.

"Is all art so obviously metaphorical?" Simon suddenly asked, his back still turned.