South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [45]
Despite herself, Madeline smiled.
“He was always good to me,” Gladys said simply.
Madeline realized, really realized for the first time: Gladys had loved him. She was both touched and infuriated. “So why wasn’t he good to me?”
Gladys shook her head, seeming either not to know or not to know how to say.
“He abandoned me. He and Jackie both did. She at least was young and all screwed Up. He was old enough to know better. And no one cares.”
“It’s not a matter of caring. It’s a matter of the way things are. It’s over and done. Here you are, you’re fine. And I’d think you were better off as you were.”
The truth of this was Undeniable, even though it resolved nothing.
They came to a stop in front of McAllaster Crafts, which had opened the weekend before. Even though it was well after midnight there was a woman inside. She was heavyset, with long black hair that cascaded down her back. Madeline had seen her riding an old bicycle around town, or driving a rusting truck sometimes. She worked at a table by the glow of a lamp, weaving reeds around a frame to make a basket. They watched as she picked the half-made basket Up and turned it in one hand to check its balance, then bent over the work again. After a moment, they continued on.
The woman lingered in Madeline’s mind. She was making art, of course that had caught her attention, but it was something else too. The innocence of it, maybe, the lack of expectation. She was so engrossed in her work, seemed satisfied to be where she was. The basket might sell for twenty dollars, or it might not. The shop never seemed busy and the things in it weren’t sophisticated. The basket would never make her famous or end up in a museum. The best part of it was the making of it, sitting at the table weaving while outside the lake crashed into shore and the seagulls roosted somewhere for the night and two women stopped for a moment to watch.
Maybe Madeline hadn’t missed so much, skipping art school, after all.
Lately she’d been working on a picture of Gladys and Arbutus at their morning coffee. She yearned to show their sisterness, their northernness, their old-fashionedness, the Unearthly remoteness of it all. She wanted to paint Arbutus’s sweetness, Gladys’s resolution, their devotion to each other. Was it possible? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, but what harm would there be (except to herself, in disappointment and frustration and the stirring Up of old dreams) if she tried? How long had it been? Fifteen years at least. How was that possible?
Emmy always said she must’ve been born drawing. Madeline still remembered the picture she’d been coloring the day Jackie left: Winnie the Pooh with a jar of honey. Emmy’d encouraged her right from the start: sketch pads, crayons, finger paints, watercolors. And then, on her eighth birthday, a crow-quill pen and a bottle of Higgins ink. It had made her feel so grown-up. Emmy must’ve gone to an art supply store and asked what to get. The crow-quill pen was great. The nib was flexible, so more pressure gave you a thicker line; less, a thin one. Madeline remembered realizing that, experimenting with it. She could see herself sprawled on her stomach on the Oriental rug in the living room, drawing thick lines and thin ones, over and over.
Emmy always took her seriously. She didn’t even get mad when Madeline knocked the ink bottle over on the rug—one of the few expensive things she owned. She looked at the stain, frowning for a long moment, and then said, “You like working down there on the floor?”
Yes, Madeline said. She did. It was where she did her best thinking.
“That’s where you have to be, then. The stains will wash out.”
They had washed out, more or less, every time, because of course that wasn’t the only ink to spill or seep through the paper. If you turned the rug over you could see the stains on the other side.
At first Madeline kept drawing when