Chapter 12: Paint the Day You Can't

My professor gave the summer studio one assignment on Monday morning.

"Paint the day you can't," she said. "Not the day you won't. The one you can't. Four hours. No talking."

Twelve easels stood in a circle under the skylights.

I took the one by the window and squeezed out cadmium red, and for the first ten minutes I painted nothing.

I had slept two hours.

Flynn had driven me back to campus in his truck, and kissed me once at the curb, and told me to eat something.

I hadn't told him what I'd seen in Gran's drawing.

I hadn't told anyone.

I stared at the blank canvas, with Gran's pencil lawn open on the stool beside it.

Then I picked up the brush and started with the green.

I painted the grass first, because it was the easiest.

I painted the white tablecloth and the lemon cake with its nine candles still lit.

I painted a small girl in a yellow dress.

The brush moved on its own.

I put the girl in the middle of the lawn with a plate in her hands, looking up at the porch.

Gran sat on the porch in her wicker chair, with her sketchbook open on her knee.

That was how it came back.

Gran had called me up to her.

"Come sit by me, Saskia," she had said. "Bring your cake."

I had gone up the steps, and she had put the pencil behind her ear and pulled me close against her cardigan, and I had smelled peppermint.

And then the voices had started, down in the driveway.

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