The Painting

#57 The Moon - An Ghealach

In a way I had already – before I met Lyle. Sure I had Grace and the folks at White Pine, they were a part of my life but only because Grace had effectively shouldered her way into my heart. I was thankful for her maternal persistence but what if she hadn't taken such a liking to me? Would I be alone? Still working in a dirty restaurant and eating frozen meals in my one room apartment whose windows stuck.

Or maybe I wasn't that far off. Sure my windows didn't stick anymore and I was able to bask in the cool summer breeze but I wasn't running into the wind. I kept everything hidden from Grace, so well in fact that it became natural. Something I had to do to keep her safe instead of a conscious choice I made time after time.

"All my life I've wanted so desperately to know more about my mother, maybe because I wanted to be more like her. To have a role model, someone to look up to. But now I think I am scared that I will become her. She had an affair with a married man – an awful manipulative man. She left me. I spent all this time building her up to be beautiful and perfect thinking deep down that she'd come back to me, but now she's..." I struggled to define who my mother had become in my eyes.

"She's human May." Lyle spoke. "I'll admit before my parents died there were sometimes when I wished they would. And when they actually did ... I was distraught. I don't think it was entirely because they passed . But because the chance of them becoming better, becoming the parents I always wanted them to be was taken away completely. Someone took the rug out from under me and I was left face down on the floor. It sucks, the fact that you'll never know what could've happened." She paused running her hand over my back.

"Stay right there." Lyle held up her hand before running off into the cabin returning moments later with the tiny red bound book in her hands. She lay on her back and we reassumed our position with my head underneath her arm as I took the journal into my hands.

Placing her hands over mine Lyle opened the journal to page seventy seven. Coarse shading lines constituted the penned drawing of a positive pregnancy test.

"Maybe your mom wasn't the greatest person in the world. Misguided yes, but you have to hold onto the fact that she loved you. That's how I got through it – at least how I'm trying to. Whenever I become angry with my parents for wasting their time at that stupid business or neglecting me while they worked late I try look at it through their eyes. They wanted to provide for me and working -the money- it was the only way they knew how. Were they good parents? Fuck no. But that doesn't mean I am going to give up all my energy to hating them."

I let her honest words sink in. "You're a good person Lyle Ayres."

She bit her lip as she paused. "You know I didn't come to that conclusion because it kicked me in the ass." She held my gaze. "I went looking for it."

I swallowed hard as a vision of my mother came into view. Serene, beautiful, she was who I imagined her to be.

For a while we stared at the simple drawing until my arms grew tired and we retired the journal. The moon filled my sight as I lay side by side with Lyle our fingers intertwined.

"What's the Lily Pad Place?" Lyle's quiet by assured voice brought me back as I felt myself drifting off to sleep.

How long had we been out here? There was no sign of the sun so it couldn't have been more than a few hours - still it felt like days.

I mumbled a question and rubbed my eyes. Slanted cursive script came into my view as Lyle pointed limitedly with her hand as I lay on her arm.

"I am meeting with R.M tonight at the Lily Pad Place for the sake of love."

"Do you know where that is?"

"No," I stifled a yawn. "It must be where they met. He was – is married they couldn't just walk out of the office hand in hand."

Lyle hummed in thought but said no more on the subject.

"What do you think we'll find in Monroe's files?"

"Something good if we're lucky."

"Have you ever broken into a building before? I know you've gone into houses but aren't they less secure – not that I don't trust you or think you aren't up to it."

Lyle chuckled and brushed some hair out of my face.

"Frankie's helping. Don't worry."

I nodded and tried to focus on something else. There was no use getting more worked up than I already was.

"Will you tell me more about your childhood?" I turned my head to the side so that the cotton material tickled my ear. "When did you stop missing Margaret and Miguel?"

"Have you ever stopped missing your mother?" Lyle shot back.

Her words weren't cruel but rather practical. Pumping the breaks on my over zealous nature to ask without thinking.

"I don't think it's so much that you stop, but you slow down. Your mind isn't running a mile a minute thinking about what you could've done or said differently – even if I was just a baby."

Lyle nodded in agreement. "It's a little light in your heart that goes out."

"Sometimes it flickers though. You know?" I said and Lyle titled her head to look at me. Her startling light green eyes shone through the darkness and I felt a flicker in another part of my heart. "When I first found my mother's paintings I felt the light flicker. Sometimes when I draw I feel it go on. Just for a second but I know it's there, I can feel the warmth."

"It's a nice feeling." She smiled pulling me into a hug. 

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