Painthings (3/3)
The third, and final story of the 3 part Haés Painthings collection | Read time: 5 min
Her brush sopped up the last gobs of aquamarine from the bottom of the can. From the corner of the room, Emmanuella 'heard' the vibrations of her father placing heavy pails of replacement paint to the floor. She could feel him walk over, and pause beside her. He stood just inside her field of vision trying not to startle her, still convinced, like everyone else, that she had no awareness beyond what she could see. Able watched her meditative movements, uneven colourful strokes that disappeared the blank away. Though he always wondered, he knew better than to ask why she insisted every canvas have a base of the same pale sherberty green, or why she wasn't uniform in covering every millimetre. Instead Able placed a soft kiss on her forehead, scooped the empty can beside her, and affectionately messed up her hair. Emmanuella rewarded him with an eye-roll, and lifted her dripping brush like a club, warning of stained clothing in retaliation. He backed away with his hands raised, and blew a farewell kiss as he left his studio.
Their studio she supposed. Despite her parent's insistence over the last few years, it was still hard for her to accept. To Emmanulla it would always be her father's space, no matter many of her paintings consumed it, or how much he tried to accommodate her. She loved it there. She had loved it from the moment she'd stepped into that strange beautiful house. Tucked away at the end of a col-de-sac, hidden by trees on the edge of a small ravine. It felt secret from the rest of the city, a small sanctuary from the vibrant chaos. Within that oasis, the studio was a world unto itself.
She set the canvas to dry, and moved to her readied stacks leaning upright against the wall. All the same colour, all with different strokes. A quick flip through the pile, and a choice was made, as inexplicable as it was inevitable. Primed canvas in hand Emmanuella took care as she stepped across mountainous folds of painting tarp covering the floor. At thirteen she still felt guilty for occupying the space, for changing her parent's home, and altering her father's studio. She missed the warm rug, with its intricate patterns across the dark hardwood floor. A recent lighting renovation had both brightened the room, and evaporated its old, welcoming ambience. Her father insisted that the changes were for the better, that the room still encouraged creativity, and that when Em painted she was like an electric current, creating a different, improved energy within the walls.
Able did not wield his brush as often as he used to with her. Em supposed it would be impossible to now with the frequency she locked herself away in the studio. When he found the time he made efforts to sit with her, even if he didn't have the energy to paint. Strumming along, playing a guitar, making sounds she would never know.
After all these years, Emmanuella still painted what she "heard", and she could hear his love. All of their love, for that matter, each member of her family, as well as the unit as a whole. Louder than any of them could imagine. The sounds of their conversations, their laughs, the sound of their hugs, the echoes of their dances to music she had no way of knowing, Em's interpretations of their noises was the inspiration within all the colours she created. One day she'd tell them, for now, she kept a written key tucked away in her diary. Riddled away within were the secrets she was reluctant to share. Against the back cover was a collection of polaroids of her paintings with lists of what the shades said scribbled on the back. The sounds of her mother's whispers, the sounds her father made tasting flavours while preparing meals, the sound of Rosetta while she slept, the sound of her sister singing, and her brother swooshing sticks in his pretend swordplay. As confident as she was with her brush, Em couldn't bear to know if she was wrong. If her paintings were inaccurate. Emmanulla clung to her translations of sound with such certainty that she was terrified of what depth of despair she may fall to should she lose the illusion. Terrified she might plummet back to the dejecting woe of the orphanage.
Emmanulla exhaled as much anxiety as she could muster while she spilled acrylics into little ponds across to her palate. She knew she'd paint it again today, the sound of his first hello in that hopeless place. While her life now was filled with a symphony of colour, her earliest memories were all muted, save for that awful sound. There was silent warmth before the orphanage, she hoped it was of her biological parents. Then, of course, was the noise of the accident.
The aquamarine coating the canvas swayed the tide within her. It was the same green as her old bedroom in the facility. Glancing away Emmanuella mixed a creamy crushed orange, and a zipping lemony yellow with a few dots of eggshell, then lathered the concoction across the canvas, covering it from corner to corner, covering the past. As she brushed she remembered her father’s eyes as they caught her’s glancing through the doorway. They were so different from her own. Now they reminded her of oceans but having never seen a sea or large body of water before that day, she thought they looked like the sky. The heavens opened and he paused, wandering in with a welcoming expression and he crouched to his knees, meeting her on her level. She was shy and confused, why was he stopping when the rest of the children, the normal ones, were playing down the hall? She saw his smiling mouth moving, and didn't know how to respond.
Her, now mother, followed into the room, looking for her husband, wearing the same warm expression. Emmanuella felt a jolting spark of hope, until the director walked in. She saw their faces change as the director's chin wagged, her mothers hand went to her father's back, and he'd held her close. She looked at Emmanuella, pointed to her eyes, made a large circle with her hand around the room then nodded at her husband. A waiting hand beckoned Emmanuella forward.
It wasn't anything like the sign language she'd learned, and she was cautious of getting herself too optimistic, and misunderstanding. They couldn't possibly want her to join them as they looked around?
The cold aquamarine walls bore witness to the sound of their hands clasping, to the sound of the warmth of the woman's hand, sounds Emmanulla loved to mix with her father's look. And while she'd never shared how and why her paintings always started the same way, covering up the walls of her past, she knew. She knew the worst parts of our past were the best places to build upon. That with a foundation of acknowledgement she was free to open her eyes, ears, and heart to whatever felt like coming through. Through the confusion, and hurt in her past she found tranquillity, and gratitude in the now.
thanks for reading!
-Mr. Write