The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,16

not,’ I told him. ‘No way, not ever.’ But, Elizabeth, the man is a Jesuit. They practically invented logic. Whatever objection I raised, he had an answer. ‘You can have a free hand,’ he said. ‘Paint whatever you’re inspired to paint.’ And there was Mother the whole time, just loving the idea. She’s never much cared for my work, but there she was just swelling with pride. What could I do? What could I do?”

Every couple of weeks I venture up to the church for a look at her progress. It’s uphill all the way, so I approach the miniature spires with their recessed grottoes for statued saints with a burn in my calves. Inside, there’s a musty smell that goes well with the gloom. I always look around furtively, afraid I might be interrupting some arcane ritual. But usually the place is empty. Like a small-scale Michelangelo, Deedee has erected a scaffold and screened off the wall with a swath of plastic sheeting. When she’s at work, the shop lights inside the enclosure make the plastic glow white, and you can see her silhouette pacing back and forth.

The last time I checked, however, Deedee wasn’t working. She’d painted over most of what she’d already done.

“I should never have agreed,” she says. “I’m not a religious artist. I don’t understand religious art.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t think of it as religious. Just do what you do.”

This stops her for a moment. She studies me closely. “You know who you sound like? The priest.”

At the edge of the garden, beside a low stone wall half sunk in the earth, she erects her easel, unfolds her chair, and unslings the shoulder bag full of paints and caked brushes and other paraphernalia.

“You wouldn’t be more comfortable in your studio?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “That’s where I work. This is where I think.”

Her studio is another one of the former outbuildings, perhaps twice the size of Rick’s shed and equally stuffed, with beautiful skylight windows in the roof. The only examples of Deedee’s work I have seen in person are the canvases stacked on one side of the studio under a drape cloth. She paints very detailed, almost photographic pictures, but with a surreal flatness to them, so that they appear both real and imaginary at the same time. I’m no art critic. To the extent that I have any taste at all, I’m drawn more to folk art. Deedee’s work is nothing like that. I love it, though, mainly because I love her.

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” she asks. “Not that I mind. It’s just, you’re usually running around like a decapitated chicken. I’m not used to you standing still for this long.”

“Hmm,” I say.

Rick doesn’t like me sharing family business with the neighbors. It’s not about keeping up appearances. What’s private is private, that’s all. Not to mention, he tells me, we don’t want to reinforce people’s stereotypical view of Christians. By the stone wall, we’re within earshot of his shed. He’s probably eavesdropping right now.

“The thing is,” I say, glancing toward the shed’s window, “my husband had a psychotic break this morning. He’s holed up in the shed right now, saying he won’t come out for a month, not until God talks to him or something . . .”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, it’s like that book. The one where the man goes to the shack and it turns out Oprah is really God.”

“Not exactly.”

“No, really,” she insists. “There was a thing about it in the Times.”

“Oh, I’m familiar with the book.” Boy, am I! Both of the ladies’ book clubs I belong to read it in turns. The first one wanted to shellac the book in gold dust and the second one wanted to burn it. “I’m just saying, I don’t think that’s where Rick got the idea. But who knows?” I raise my voice a little. “I wouldn’t put it past him to rip off somebody else’s idea.”

One, two . . . and there it is. The shed door swings open and Rick appears. He doesn’t glance our way. He pretends he doesn’t know we’re watching. Closing the door with exaggerated care, he beats a path back to the house, eyes down.

“Well,” Deedee says, “I don’t know if it was God he heard or you, sweetheart. But he doesn’t look too keen. Maybe you’re being a little hard on him.”

This coming from a woman who never married. A woman who, according to Roy Meakin, was nothing if not hard