painting of the house you live in, hanging inside said house?)
As a child I would go stand before it and wish myself inside. I imagined that our alternates were living within its watercolor walls. I dreamt that laughter and love lay beyond the green lawn, inside the white columns and the heavy oak door.
The painter even added a dog barking at a tree, as if he knew that we used to have one. She was soft and brown and she made the mistake of peeing in his office. We never saw her again. The painter could not have known this; and yet, there is a dog in the painting and sometimes I swear I could hear her bark.
The beauty of our home could never compare to the beauty of the painting, with its perpetual pink dawn and leaves that never withered, and its bushes, tinted with otherworldly shades of yellow and purple, ringing the garden. In the painting, the outside walls are always a crisp white, while in reality we have not been able to repaint them and they are now a bleached-out yellow.
When he died, I sold every other painting he had bought for the cash. It was no great loss. If I could have gotten rid of the house itself, I would have. But he had built our southern-style home from scratch, which meant no rent and no mortgage (besides, no one was interested in acquiring a home of that size, when the paperwork for the land it was built on was dubious at best). So instead of moving into a smaller apartment, we managed the maintenance costs of our grand, history-rich home as best we could.
I glance at the painting once more as I make the trip from bedroom to kitchen. There are no people in it, which is just as well. But if you squint, you can see a shadow through one of the windows that looks like it might be a woman.
“Your sister just wants to be around you, you know. You are her best friend.” It is my mother. She comes to stand beside me. Mother still talks about Ayoola as if she were a child, rather than a woman who rarely hears the word “no.” “What harm will it do if she comes to your workplace now and again?”
“It’s a hospital, Mum, not a park.”
“Eh, we have heard. You stare at that painting too much,” she says, changing the subject. I look away, and instead direct my eyes to the piano.
We should really have sold the piano, too. I swipe my finger across the lid, making a line in the dust. My mother sighs and walks away, because she knows I won’t be able to rest until there is not a speck of dust left on the piano’s surface. I head to the supply cabinet and grab a set of wipes. If only I could wipe away all our memories with it.
BREAK
“You didn’t tell me you have a sister.”
“Mm.”
“I mean, I know the school you went to and the name of your first boyfriend. I even know that you love to eat popcorn with syrup drizzled on it—”
“You really need to try it sometime.”
“—but I didn’t know you have a sister.”
“Well, you know now.”
I turn away from Tade and dispose of the needles on the metal tray. He could do it himself, but I like to find ways to make his work easier. He is hunched over his desk, scribbling on the page before him. No matter how quickly he writes, his handwriting is large and its loops connect letter to letter. It is neat and clear. The scratching sound of the pen stills, and he clears his throat.
“Is she seeing anyone?”
I think of Femi sleeping on the ocean bed, being nibbled at by fishes. “She is taking a break.”
“A break?”
“Yes. She isn’t going to be dating anyone for a while.”
“Why?”
“Her relationships tend to end badly.”
“Oh…guys can be jerks.” This sounds strange coming from a guy, but Tade has always been sensitive. “Do you think she would mind if you gave me her number?” I think of Tade, fish swimming by as he drifts down toward the ocean bed, toward Femi.
I place the syringe back on the tray carefully so I don’t accidentally stab myself with it.
“I’ll have to ask her,” I tell him, though I don’t intend to ask Ayoola anything. If he doesn’t see her, she will fade into the far reaches of his mind like a cold draft on an