Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [49]
Rosalia straightened her apron, then began to unbutton her shirt. When she’d loosed the last button, Abbie stepped behind and helped her slip it off. Quickly, as if she was afraid she’d change her mind, Rosalia reached behind her and unclasped her own bra. Then, without pulling her arms through, she let it fall, exposing the imbalance.
Abbie knelt next to her, patted her on the arm and spoke to me. “Rosalia fled her country when I was just a baby.” She pointed at a crooked and wide scar—nearly an inch and a half in width—that ran from the nipple of her right breast, across her sternum, across where the left breast used to be, under her armpit and around onto her back. “But not before a man with a machete got ahold of her.” Rosalia’s right breast sagged nearly to her waist, held up only by the roll of fat pushed up by her apron. Abbie stood behind her, untied Rosalia’s jet black hair streaked with white and let it fall across her shoulders. It came nearly to her waist.
I looked at Abbie. Searching. Abbie kissed Rosalia on the cheek and lifted her chin. Then she spoke to me. “Rosalia has always wanted a portrait. I told her you could do it.”
I stepped back to my canvas, made it look like I was prepping pencils and paints, wondering how in the world I was going to do that when Abbie walked behind me and put her arms around me. She whispered in my ear, “Doss, look with your eyes.” She covered my eyes with her hand. “Not these.” She slid her hand down onto my chest. “These. Look through here and show her what she’s always wanted to see.” She slid her hand into mine. “Show her that she’s beautiful beyond measure.”
I stared at the horror staring back at me. “How?”
Her breath was warm on my ear. “Search what you see and find the one thing that makes you want to look again.”
Rosalia sat on her stool, staring back at me. I shifted uneasily on mine, my palms sweating, mouth dry, thinking, What do I do when she discovers that I can’t do what she hopes I can do. Abbie walked around us, talking on the phone with her agent, booking flights, managing her career. She could multitask on a level I’d never comprehended. Before me, sat Rosalia. Quietly waiting.
With nothing to hide, and nothing to hide behind, she lifted her chin, pulled one shoulder back, looked down her nose and out of the corner of her eye at me.
In three seconds, she went from pitiful and broken to towering and magnificent.
Four hours later, I had the bones of a sketch. Abbie flew to New York, but I spent the next eight days sweating and hyperventilating. Abbie flew home, called me at 2 a.m. and I held her at bay. “Not yet.” Okay, yes, I was afraid. So I spent another two days tweaking it, getting my courage up, then finally, because she nearly beat the door down, I let her in and clicked on the light.
The light hit the canvas and Abbie stepped back. She sucked in a chestful of air, dropped Indian-style onto the floor and covered her mouth, crying. I stepped back into the shadow, wondering. Worried. Growing sicker by the second. Abbie pulled the light closer, then lightly brushed her fingertip across the texture of the scar on the canvas.
She turned to me, her lip quivering. Tears were pouring off her face. “Oh…I don’t know how to say this.”
Me either. I started backpedaling. “This is just one option. I can start over. Maybe try it from a different angle or—”
She began shaking her head. “No…” She stood, placed her palms on my face and pressed her lips to mine. I remember her face was wet, her mascara had smeared like a raccoon and my knees buckled like the Tin Man.
That kiss traveled down my face, through my throat, it parted my shoulders and cut into the deeper places in my soul before coming to rest. She placed her head on my shoulder and just shook