Goddamn Tragedy

X

She couldn't get the shade of green right.

Her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she brought the paintbrush across the white canvas once more. She smeared in more white but only continued to scowl as she compared what was on her canvas to the tree a few feet away from her.

The sun was on her face and she didn't need a mirror to know that her cheeks were probably rosy and her forehead sweaty due to the heat.

She had woken up and had a sudden itch to paint the tree she had planted so many years ago with her father and Wells. She could hear her own soft young giggle as her father placed the small tree into the ground.

It was strange to her how the tree continued to grow strong and happily when the person who planted it was long gone.

She focused on the paint; she didn't want to think about things like that. She couldn't get out of her own head recently but painting helped. Painting caused her fingers to become colored and her heart to feel lighter. It took her mind off of everything, at least for a little while.

"You're pretty good."

She turned her head and squinted up at the figure beside her. She forced a small smile as she focused back onto her canvas.

It was becoming a regular routine to have Marcus Kane around her house. At first it unsettled her, made her mad even. But now she found herself somewhat grateful for the empty space he took up. How dinner with her mother was no longer silent. How she could look out the window and see him grilling on her father's grill. How she would see him make her mother laugh.

She didn't like it but she did all the same.

"I'm alright." She finally muttered out as she pressed the paintbrush to the canvas. She sighed as she tried to match the leaves up, only to fail once again.

"Better than anything I could draw." Marcus held out his hands and moved his fingers as he spoke. He stood still for a few minutes before he plopped down next to her. She casted him a sideways glance but continued to paint. "You seem passionate about it."

She shrugged. She loved it. "I guess." She turned her head. "If I could-." She paused and bit at her lip. "If I could I'd probably major in it."

His eyes narrowed. "Why couldn't you?"

She almost laughed out aloud. She turned her head back toward the tree and stared at the thick branches. The silence must have answered his question because he didn't press her on it. She was grateful for that.

"My wife used to paint." She sat still as his voice broke through her thoughts. "She would set up in our backyard, just like this, and she would paint for hours." He cleared his throat. She turned toward him, intrigued. "She didn't even stop once she got sick. I would tell her to lay in bed but at the end of the day I'd find her painting out in our rose garden."

She didn't know he had a wife. She didn't know he was a widower. She didn't really know anything about him except how he took his steak and how he preferred white wine to red.

"She was the love of my life." He continued. She tried not to notice the crack in his voice. "But I know she'd be happy for me."

She stared at him. She took in his dark complexion. "Happy that you're with my mom?"

He stared back at her before he nodded and looked away. "Yeah." He brought a hand to his mouth and rubbed something that wasn't even there. "I think she'd be happy that I found a reason to keep going. Keep breathing."

She thought about her mother's face when her father's casket was being lowered into the ground. How her perfect tan face was wet and how she stared at the ground so blankly. How her hands shook clutching hers as priest read the lines from the poem, Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep.