AT NIGHT WE PAINT THE STARS

3rd Instalment

When Gerald doesn’t come home for dinner, she and scream at her for not keeping his dinner warm. The Voice keeps telling her — warning her in that tone it uses whenever it wants to make a point — that Gerald will still be expecting his dinner no matter what time he gets home. She waits until 9:00 o’clock before she allows Dan to sit at the dinner table.

They sit across from each other with a table full of food between them — more food than either of them can eat: roasted, herbed potatoes, pork chops, with left over chicken, and stuffing from the night before; fresh, home made bread, and rolls; peas, carrots, and creamed corn; there’s a salad, gravy, and mashed potatoes from last night as well — and she only comes in from the kitchen and sits down when Dan tells her he isn’t going to eat until she does.

“Do you think something happened?” she asks at last, reaching for a dinner roll.

“The truck probably broke down,” Dan says, helping himself to a plateful of mashed potatoes and chicken, washing it all in thick gravy.

“Do you think so?” She begins picking at her dinner roll.

“It’s been acting up for the last week,” Dan says, scooping up peas, carrots, and cream corn on top of his potatoes. “He said he didn’t want to bring it in to get it fixed yet, because we needed it. Apples’re more important, I guess."

— he gets like that sometimes, doesn’t he? the Voice points out, and she nods as if she agrees.

“He can be stubborn sometimes,” she says after a moment, biting into her dinner roll and chewing it slowly. “But why doesn’t he phone?” she adds, dropping the dinner roll on the table.

“Maybe he hasn’t thought about it?” Dan offers, mixing the gravy, vegetables, and potatoes on his plate into a soupy mess.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No,” he grins. “I was just trying to make you feel better,” he says, adding salt and pepper to his food.

“I don’t think it’s working,” she smiles shyly.

“I’ve got something that’ll make you feel better,” he smiles, swallowing a mouthful of food. “Take your mind off of everything for a while.”

— I’ll bet he does, the Voice growls.

“What?” she asks, dismissing the Voice with a smile.

“It’s a clear night. Have you ever looked through a telescope before?”

“No,” she laughs. “I’ve never even seen one before. I mean, I’ve seen pictures of them, just not a real one.”

“Then you’re in luck! I’ll bring it out and show you it to you later. We should be able to see Venus pretty clearly.”

“I saw a shooting star once,” she offers. “I wonder why they call them that?”

“That’s what they thought they were in the old days. The Greeks are the ones who named the stars.”

“But I thought the names were Latin?”

“I think that came during the Enlightenment — you know, Galileo and Copernicus? That group?”

The telephone rings, echoing through the small kitchen. She looks at Dan briefly as he waits for her to answer it. She hesitates, afraid of what Gerald will say as soon as she picks it up. She knows he’ll be angry and try to blame her for whatever’s happened. She pushes her chair back and drops her napkin on the table, limping to the phone and picking the receiver up slowly.

“Hello? Gerald?” Her voice sounds breathless, anxious, almost apprehensive.

She can see Dan watching her closely; he pushes his chair back and she feels her eyebrows knit together. Her little hand goes up to her throat, clutching at her dress as tears come to her eyes. She leans against the wall, almost almost stumbles, as Dan stands up and rushes to her side.

She looks at him, shakes her head slowly and he stops, looking at her closely. She can feel her heart beating as she listens. He’s watching her…and she lets the receiver slip out of her hand as she sinks back against the wall. He catches her before she falls to the floor, helping her to a chair at the table. He picks the receiver up and listens to the dead line before hanging it up, then turns back to her.

“What’s the matter? What’d he say?” he asks.

“It wasn’t him — it wasn’t Gerald.”

“No? Then who…?”

“It was the hospital — I’ve all ready forgotten her name, isn’t that funny?” she says, forcing a smile and looking up at him, her head tilted to one side. “She said there’s been a terrible accident.”

“And? You mean he’s…he’s. Is he?” It was obvious he didn’t want to say anything that would upset her, but she knew what he meant, because she was shaking her head slowly.

— oh, I bet he wishes he was. I can see it in his eyes. I wish he was too, don’t you Agnes? Don’t you wish Gerald was dead?

“No! He’s not dead!” she lashes out angrily, trying to shake the Voice out of her head.

Dan steps back uneasily, watching her.

“He’s in a coma. I’ve got to get out there,” she says suddenly, trying to stand up. “I have to go to him. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

— you don’t want him to make it, do you? Dan doesn’t. Look at him.

“Why?” Dan asks strangely, placing a hand on her shoulders; not holding her down, not really restraining her, either — but certainly not encouraging her.

“What?” she asks, flustered, and confused. She looks up at him, wondering whose voice she’s hearing; if perhaps, somehow, the Voice is coming out of Dan’s mouth.

— listen to me! the Voice echoes in her confusion.

— why do you have to see him now? You don’t love each other. He certainly doesn’t love you, does he? Why would he treat you the way he does, if he loved you? So? Why see him now? Anyway, even if you did see him, what would you do? He’s in a coma.

“He’s my husband,” she says with a weak, whimpering whine, and drawing her knees up, rests her feet on the seat of the chair, hugging herself tight. She tries sorting out the Voice in her head from Dan’s voice, wondering why she’s even trying.

“He’s your husband in name only, and you know it,” Dan says. “It’s a title to him.”

“What are you…?” she asks, looking up at him. “What?”

“Go in the morning if you feel like you have to go, but not now. It’s late. You’re in no condition to go anywhere. Besides, how’re you even gonna get there? You’ll have to call a neighbour to give you a ride. Do you even know your neighbours?”

“I should be with him,” she says weakly.

“Why? Do you love him that much?” he asks.

— he’s right, isn’t he? Do you even love him at all? the Voice asks. Why pretend?

Tears come to her eyes as she searches for an answer he might believe — an answer she can believe. She bows her head, resting it against her knees, studying the shrunken fingers of her left hand. The tears roll down her cheeks and soak into her dress.

As she picks a napkin up, thinking she should wipe the tears away, she suddenly wonders if she’s crying for him, or herself? She remembers the years she’s spent with him, how he distanced himself from her and drove her away with his cruelty. And for what? Why? There’s no answer — no rhyme, nor reason, it’s not in season, as her mother used to say. If it was, she might’ve been able to address it, fight it; maybe even win him back. He should’ve been the first one to comfort her when she lost the baby, instead, he blamed her — and she remembered how he looked at it as his loss. It was as if she didn’t even exist in his world.

Dan kneels in front of her, telling her he’s sorry for what he said, wiping her tears with the napkin she’s holding. It was a stupid thing to say, he tells her. She tries forcing a smile, then reaches a hand out and strokes his smooth cheeks.

“I’ll be all right,” she says after a moment. “I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself. But you’re right. I’ll see him in the morning — I’ll ask Ferguson to drive me into town when he comes by — if I even go at all.”

She stands up and drops the napkin on the floor. She looks at the dinner on the table and sighs. “I’ll take care of this mess in the morning. Right now, I think I’ll just go to bed.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Dan asks, and she smiles at him.

“I’ll be fine.”

*

Dan watches as she walks up the stairs with that familiar drag-clump, drag-clump, of her foot banging against the risers. He starts to clean up the left-over dinner as best he can, covering dishes and trying to find room for everything in the fridge. He rinses the dishes and lets them soak in the sink for the morning before making his way to the studio where his sleeping bag is rolled up in the corner, along with his knapsack.

He pulls his last joint out of the knapsack, opens the window and sits on the windowsill, lighting the joint and taking a toke. He looks up at the stars flooding the darkness, trying not to think about the dreams that still haunt his sleep — telling himself that’s just the way it is and he’d better get used to it. He gets undressed and climbs into his sleeping bag.

The joint makes it easier for him to sleep but it doesn’t keep the dreams away; it only keeps the edge off. He watches the moon slip into the room with the stealth of a thief, gradually, silently, and feels himself drifting off to sleep. When he opens his eyes again, Agnes is staring down at him, watching him. He unzips the sleeping bag and holds it open, letting her look at his nakedness in the moon’s light.

“I want you to make love to me,” she says, pulling the pins out of her hair; she slips her nightgown off her shoulders, stepping out of it deliberately, and moves toward him.

He looks at her body gleaming in the moonlight and smiles up at her.

“Happy to oblige.”

*

Agnes is told the money in the bank will last three months — and that’s if she’s careful with it. After that, she’ll have to figure out what to do. The insurance company said they’d pay for his medical bills, so she didn’t have to think about that, but it didn’t leave her much to live on. And now, Gerald was coming home after having been in the hospital for eight weeks. He’d been in a coma for six days before coming out of it, and the first thing he asked for was a ham sandwich.

It’s during those eight weeks that Agnes has let herself fall in love.

It wasn’t a matter of infatuation like the Voice insisted it was; and it certainly wasn’t like anything she’d fantasized about in the past. It came from deep inside her; it’s something she senses she might nurture and watch grow.

She’d phoned the hospital only four times over the eight weeks Gerald was there, and refused to see him after they told her he was paralyzed and would likely never walk again.

Dan tries to understand, and promises to help her as much as he can. She’s grateful, but her heart sinks when he adds an addendum and says he’ll have to move on eventually. He tells her that if she wants to come with him, that’s her decision — it’s her choice — but she knows it isn’t something he expects her to do, it’s just something he says.

But in the meantime the autumn has come, painting the leaves with brilliant colours: gold, yellow, flaming orange, and ruby red, until the leaves finally fall like wizened pieces of brown paper and crumble underfoot. Autumn is her favourite time of the year with the palette of colours it offers; the colours blend in with the shorter days. Agnes carries her paints outside for the first time in years, determined to paint a landscape that first caught her attention half a lifetime ago. She feels free of the prison sentence and the restrictions Gerald once imposed upon her, and she invites Dan to go out with her. He goes along happily, carrying her easel and paints like a kid at school carrying her books.

 She paints effortlessly, using heavy brush strokes and cutting trees onto the canvas with her palette knife; she stabs in country colours that mingle and bring her paintings into focus. It’s a combination of styles — Van Gogh, Carr, Monet — but a style that is all hers. She is an original.

Agnes never thought it would be possible to fall in love with a man, let alone a man she’s older than by ten years. With Dan, everything is different. Everything about her has changed, and she knows it. He’s happy to pose for her and let her paint him; he encourages her. He tells her she can easily sell in New York, or Chicago. She listens, but she doesn’t believe him — she doesn't want to — but smiles just to hear it, instead of hearing the Voice in her head always denying her talent.

But the Voice has retreated because she no longer has any need of it.

They only walk back to the house when the sun begins to set behind distant hills and the far-off Blue Ridge mountains. The colours of the sunset are a contrast to the colours of the orchard, and he tells her how beautiful she looks in the fading light. He shows her the stars and the planets through his telescope, telling her Galileo saw the same thing the first time he turned his eyes to the heavens.

She makes dinner, and later, they find themselves in each others arms — two lovers locked in a final embrace, because they know Gerald’s coming home. She knows she’ll never be happier than she is at this moment, and as he puts his arms around her and pulls himself into her, she cries out to the night and thinks of the fire’s embers floating in the night sky, and how it’s her voice she hears echoing in the night.