Page 57 of Portrait of A Lost Artist
?CHAPTER TWENTY
NATHAN
“Now she has me crazy, a lover boy’s head. She has me thinking that she can heal pasts, that she can erase all that I’ve left behind. It won’t come back.”- Bien Hecho by Humbe.
THE CONCEPT OF NEWEXPERIENCES VARIES GREATLY; FOR SOME, IT MIGHT INVOLVE SAVORING FINE LIQUOR, WHILE FOR OTHERS, IT MEANS TRAVELING TO A PLACE WITH SUCH A DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT CLIMATE THAT THEIR WARDROBE OFFERS NO RESPITE FROM THE COLD.I would have never thought that the most tranquil experience I would go through could include bringing a house up from its ashes. To move to rural California, trees shadowing the thoughts that could have brought me to hell and back if I didn’t have something else to care about.
Opal sits on the edge of the staircase of my small home. Hearing myself saying it brings warmth up my empty stomach.Home. While not a precise echo of my time with Benicio long ago, his insights allowed me to find value within these four walls. Mornings here are a ritual of brewing coffee, its fragrance dancing with the music in the air as I engage in gardening or reading, my Spanish lessons progressing online in the background.
All an effort not to think about her, but a sigh traps in my lips from time to time, as Opal studies me with eyes that know nothing about the suffering that sometimes overtakes my heart. A pinch so strong that it goes down my chest, like an ice cube that slowly traces my sternum until it hits me straight in the gut.
“Jun should get here anytime.”
The anticipation of my former employees, now cherished friends, visiting is something that can genuinely put me on the edge of my seat. Jun, now with his job as a security guard for other celebrities, rarely has time to come around, but Chaeyoung, his daughter, had fallen sick with the flu and he had crashed into my guest room with his little one in his arms. He had said that he didn’t trust the pollen around his home and that her asthma scared him as it was, so he needed someone other than his wife—who was also panicking—to keep him sane.
Chaeyoung is sound asleep on the couch, one leg propped on a cushion, her arm falling off the edge, while I am ironing one of my shirts for the umpteenth time.
Obviously, Opal doesn’t answer. Neither does the little girl whom I could consider my niece at this point.
Mina, Jun’s wife, passes a hand over my shoulder. I had totally forgotten that she had been watering the plants outside.Having been the one to cultivate those trees to maturity; watching their leaves pattern the ground with shadows and their flowers emerge from the soil months ago, I insisted on taking care of them. Surprisingly, Mina turned the tables and offered her help to me as a form of gratitude for my supposed hard work.’
“Didn’t know you talked to yourself.” She says, the corners of her eyes squinting softly. Mina, when I met her plenty of years ago, had long, luscious black hair that fell down her back romantically. After motherhood, she had cut her hair until it reached her ears, quite like the length I have it right now, and dyed it a brownish gold. “I do it sometimes, too. You know, when me and Jun are arguing and all he does is look at my tits.”
That brings a smile up my lips, turning off the iron and sighing softly. “You haven’t seen me when I am on my own.” Opal’s eyes drift shut with a gentle delicacy, and she lowers herself onto her paws, finding a steady pose on the unexpectedly high and risky edge of the staircase railing; a sight that brings a small, knowing smile to my face. “No one knows they have never been alone until they live on their own and notice that even their cat wants nothing to do with them.”
Mina chuckles, shaking her head. She whispers: “Jun always worries about you. I’ve woken up to him gasping because he forgot to send you a text before he went to sleep.”
“There’s nothing to worry about.” After all, I am better. I don’t feel the ache that settled in my chest when the heartbreak made a home out of me, but the lingering voice in my head wishes for things to be different. For me to be alone but with a woman wrapping her arms around my waist, speaking in a perfect Cuban accent straight into my ear. “I’ve never been better.”
It’s not entirely inaccurate. After arriving in California, I asked Benicio to ship all the artwork I had created in Cuba—paintings uniquely inspired by Veronica. Renna felt it was important to conclude my artistic chapter with a significant last piece, and I could only envision achieving that by having Veronica as my muse. With the collaboration of other artists, I expanded on an idea that originated twenty-one months prior, incorporating sculptures, notes, and graphics, finally bringing it to completion last February.
The press raved about the exhibition, praising its quality and the intriguing mystery woven into the artwork. Some even romanticized my connection with Veronica as my ultimate love. I believe Jane Rae capitalized on this narrative, likely earning money by discussing it on a show, though none of that income reached me after Renna, the other collaborators and I divided the initial earnings. Now, I find myself exploring the Californian countryside without truly relocating from the state.
Renna’s been managing actors and singers, and truthfully, I am happy that she has an actual job now.
But I’ve been waiting for all of this to be a dream I am gladly woken up from, yet, that never happens. As much as I love the silence in my cream-colored home, with nature and beauty growing around it, reminding me that the world is more than the love humans can give to other people, the ghost of what could have been still haunts me, and each pinch I give to my skin only reminds me more of the fact that she’ll never come back.
“It’s okay not to be okay, Mom used to say.” Mina explains, quirking an eyebrow. “But I’ll choose to believe you. We are all proud of you, Nathan.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, giving her a curt nod that is thankfully interrupted by Chaeyoung waking up and saying: “Mom? I’m thirsty.”
“Coming, sweetheart.”
