It wasn't a conscious decision. The intent crept into her muscles before it slid into her mind. Like the first tendrils of a fog curling around her ankles, she was pulled into the big country kitchen, past the scarred oak table with its long benches on the right, past the huge corner fireplace on the left; it's cast iron cook pot waiting to simmer its next batch of her grandmother’s Shepherd's stew.
One tendril of fog led her to the rear mullioned window and stretched her hand to the sill where pieces of lead glass crystal purpled in the hot spring sunshine. She picked up the vase that had been shipped all the way from County Mayo, Ireland. Then to the sideboard, she picked up the pink tea rose china cup that, each day delivered her grandmother's morning coffee. She walked past the sink and saw the worn silver and turquoise ring sitting in the ring dish. It sat waiting for its mistress to finish washing the dishes and return it to her unmarried finger; its home for the last fifty years. Casey Dean picked up the ring and put it on.
She turned to rescue the poetry books from the bed table, when the sight of the painting stopped her. She was in her room looking through the window when she heard her grandmother yelling for her. "Casey Dean, you come in here..."
"...and help your old grandmother eat these cookies." Mary Dean was just placing the last of the coconut macaroons on the cooling rack when she heard the clatter of Casey’s sandals running down the red tiled hall.
"Macaroons! My favorite," she said kneeling on the oak bench, bending near the cookies to get a good whiff.
"Not too close,” Mary said as she went to the refrigerator to fetch the milk pitcher. "They're still hot. Just sit a minute and tell me what you have been doing all morning."
The towheaded child reminded Mary of a spider monkey, all arms and legs, as she resituated herself, bumping her knee on the table. "I just been looking out the window, Grandmother." Casey took a sip from her glass, leaving a milky mustache behind. Mary handed her a napkin.
"Just looking out the window, huh?"
"Yeah, but there's nuthin' much to see today."
"Why don't you go outside and get some fresh air and sun shine instead of sitting in your room looking out the window."
"I don't mean that window. I mean the other one."
"You only have one window in your room."
"No," she sang, "I have TWO--counting the one over my chest-a-drawers." Casey poked a cookie to test its temperature.
Mary Dean's brows knitted as she realized that her granddaughter was talking about the painting she'd picked up at a yard sale to brighten Casey's room. It was an unusual piece: the mixed styles gave it a look of being recently done, but the age of the paint was a giveaway to its obvious age.
The former owner was reticent to talk about the painting. He thought that it was one of a kind. That was probably good, he said, since this one was pretty strange. She'd said it looked like the work of an art school dropout. He agreed and sold it to her for a song.
Mary Dean loved art and knew that the painting was no student experiment.
Mary was concerned about the confusion Casey had with the two windows. "You don't mean to tell me that you sit in your room all day staring at that painting, do you?"
Hearing Grandmother’s tone change put Casey on guard. She wondered if she had done something wrong. Her smile faded with the look of caution that took her smile's place. "I do other things, Grandmother," she said defensively, "I like to watch."
"But how can you watch the same old picture hour after hour?"
“I imagine all sorts of things,” Picking at the edge of a cookie with her fingernail, Casey said.
"It moves." She reached for a macaroon and bit it with deep satisfaction. The warm chewy coconut cookie told her that all was right with the world. Around her full mouth, Casey continued, "I like to watch the wind play with the leaves on the big tree and the way the ducks swim in the pond. Sometimes the flowers are so pretty, I could pick 'em all."
Mary saw the picture in her mind, remembering the reds, yellows, and blues of the flowers. "That's why I bought the picture. The colors are so bright and alive." For a lonely child, the painting was her imaginary playmate. “Well, you need to get outside, too. I love you very much.”
"I know. That's why I love you because you do special things for me like make macaroons and buy me my Magic Window…"
Her mother will sell everything. The wise old roll-top desk that had absorbed four generations of concern, pride and humor the same way it had absorbed Mary Dean's Old English furniture polish. The mahogany mirror that held the ghostly images of cattle barons, horse thieves, pioneers and politicians. Casey saw her reflection in the smoky glass. All of Casey's legacy.
"Not all of it," Casey said picking up the painting that was a symbol of her grandmother's love for her.
It was nearly two o'clock when Casey pulled into the garage, and the guests were trickling away a few at a time from the wake. Taking the stairs two at a time, she reached the French doors quickly and slipped into the house. She tiptoed across the landing to her room, closed the door and stripped off her black wool suit. The white silk blouse beneath was glued to her body. Between the sun and her guilty conscious, she was drenched in sweat.
Standing in the shower, letting the cool water wash away her nerves, a battle plan began to coalesce. It was the coward's way out. She was going to leave her mother’s house. Again. But after the first hundred times it begins to get easy. Fifteen minutes later, she was out of the shower and into a dove gray blouse and a charcoal gray pants.
Downstairs again, she went through the tall glass doors that led to the back garden patio. She could see her mother still sitting in the fan-back chair surrounded by the claque who masqueraded as Alicia Dean's friends. Alicia hadn't moved in the last hour, the supremely grieving center of attention.
"You've changed," Alicia said flatly.
"Yes, mother. The heat made me queasy, so I had a rest and rumpled my suit. I knew you'd understand." Casey said.
Alicia's eyes darted, alert and calculating.
Casey saw the hot glare in her mother's eyes regarding Mary's ring.
When the ring called to Casey to save it from the auction block, she didn't think about it giving her away.
The confrontation came as the last guest left.
"Mother, let me explain--"
"Explain! Oh, please, explain! I'd love to hear the reason for your striping the ranch house bare! If I hadn't noticed Mary's ring, would you have gone back for more? Why didn't you rent a truck! Why didn't you just drive it up to the front door!"
"I didn't strip the house bare, Mother, I took a few things that she treasured and the painting was already mine."
"The painting was yours? That's not what the will says!"
"How the hell do you know what the will says? Have you had a private reading?"
"Your grandmother and I had an understanding before she died. I didn't explain it to you! It wasn't your business."
"Well, Grandmother and I had an understanding--"
"I want the painting back." Alicia's voice was edged with hysterics.
"I can't." Casey said calmly.
"Casey Dean, you will return the painting and you will do so immediately!"
"I'm sorry, Mother. It’s my childhood. You wouldn’t understand that…since you missed so much of it."
Silence.
"I hate you, Casey. I'm cutting you off. You no longer have a home. You no longer have a mother. You are alone, Casey! See how it feels to be deserted!" Alicia screamed.
“Pretty much the way it’s always felt”. Casey picked up her purse and left.
She drove away feeling the world slide off her shoulders. Could it be so easy? Casey had always thought it was her fault. It couldn't be her mother's fault because grown-ups were suppose to be kind to their children--and her mother was kind—just enough times to make it feel like love, but with only enough love to make it hurt.
She was going to be fine. Just fine. Then she pulled the car over and threw up her courage.
© 2004 Leigh McCormick
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