back to drinking, and then Kya had lost him as well. She didn’t mention to Jodie that she still kept the letter’s ashes in a little jar.
“Rosemary said Ma never made friends, never dined with the family or interacted with anybody. She allowed herself no life, no pleasure. After a while, she started talking more, and all she talked about was her children. Rosemary said Ma loved us all her life but was frozen in some horrible place of believing that we’d be harmed if she returned and abandoned if she didn’t. She didn’t leave us to have a fling; she’d been driven to madness and barely knew she’d left.”
Kya asked, “How did she die?”
“She had leukemia. Rosemary said it was possibly treatable, but she refused all medication. She just became weaker and weaker, and slipped away two years ago. Rosemary said she died much as she had lived. In darkness, in silence.”
Jodie and Kya sat still. Kya thought of the poem by Galway Kinnell that Ma had underlined in her book:
I have to say I am relieved it is over:
At the end I could feel only pity
For that urge toward more life.
. . . Goodbye.
Jodie stood. “Come with me, Kya, I want to show you something.” He led her outside to his pickup and they climbed into the back. Carefully, he removed a tarp and opened a large cardboard box, and one by one, pulled out and unwrapped oil paintings. He stood them up around the bed of the truck. One was of three young girls—Kya and her sisters—squatting by the lagoon, watching dragonflies. Another of Jodie and their brother holding up a string of fish.
“I brought them in case you were still here. Rosemary sent these to me. She said that for years, day and night, Ma painted us.”
One painting showed all five children as if they were watching the artist. Kya stared into the eyes of her sisters and brothers, looking back at her.
In a whisper, she asked, “Who’s who?”
“What?”
“There were never any photographs. I don’t know them. Who’s who?”
“Oh.” He couldn’t breathe, then finally said, “Well, this is Missy, the oldest. Then Murph. Mandy. Of course, this little cutie is me. And that’s you.”
He gave her time, then said, “Look at this one.”
Before him was an astonishingly colorful oil of two children squatting in swirls of green grass and wild flowers. The girl was only a toddler, perhaps three years old, her straight black hair falling over her shoulders. The boy, a bit older, with golden curls, pointed to a monarch butterfly, its black-and-yellow wings spread across a daisy. His hand was on the girl’s arm.
“I think you’re right. It looks like him. Why would Ma paint Tate?”
“He used to come around quite a bit, fish with me. He was always showing you insects and stuff.”
“Why don’t I remember that?”
“You were very young. One afternoon Tate boated into our lagoon, where Pa was pulling on his poke, really drunk. You were wading and Pa was supposed to be watching you. Suddenly, for no reason at all, Pa grabbed you by your arms and shook you so hard your head was thrown back. Then he dropped you in the mud and started laughing. Tate jumped out of the boat and ran up to you. He was only seven or eight years old, but he shouted at Pa. Of course, Pa smacked him and screamed at him to get off his land, never come back or he’d shoot him. By this time we’d all run down to see what was happening. Even with Pa ranting and raving, Tate picked you up and handed you to Ma. He made sure you were all right before he left. We still went fishing some after that, but he never came back to our place again.”
Not until he led me home that first time I took the boat into the marsh, Kya thought. She looked at the painting—so pastel, so peaceful. Somehow Ma’s mind had pulled beauty from lunacy. Anyone looking at these portraits would think they portrayed the happiest of families, living on a seashore, playing in sunshine.
Jodie and Kya sat on the rim of the truck bed, still looking quietly at the paintings.
He continued. “Ma was isolated and alone. Under those circumstances people behave differently.”
Kya made a soft groan. “Please don’t talk to me about isolation. No one has to tell me how it changes a person. I have lived it.