Page 81 of Henhouse
Effie had brilliantly suggested that the show be arranged as Aunt Bea’s memorial. Hope could think of no better way to celebrate the cheeky old bird than to admire her most treasured work while sharing stories of her charm and wit with people who loved her.
Hope wasn’t expecting the dozens of others who milled about the mezzanine as they approached. People she’d never seen, and who she knew were no acquaintances of Aunt Beatrice, had turned out for the show. It warmed her heart that the gallery was a success. She hoped that wherever souls went to rest there was a viewing area to Earth and that Aunt Beatrice had a front-row seat to her own celebration, herown artistic success.
Hope had helped Effie with mounting each and every watercolor piece they found in Beatrice’s portfolio. They now hung all about the room, an homage to the woman who painted them and the subjects she loved enough to paint in the first place. Hope spotted Effie standing with Louisa at the golden urn by the front window. Effie held a microphone in one hand and tentatively raised it to her lips, clearing her throat once before she began.
“I wanted to welcome everyone to the Beatrice Thatcher Watercolor Exhibition. This was not initially meant to be in memoriam. Aunt Beatrice should have been amongst you sipping her signature cocktail and asking you all which were your favorite pieces. But God had other plans.” She raised her lavender-tinted beverage in the air. “A toast to Aunt Bea, thanks for letting us love you.”
Hope noted Effie’s effort to keep from crying at the last words. She turned to find Brayden poised before a portrait of Hope. It was surrounded by four or five others. In one, her three-year-old self hugged the bunny stuffed animal that now lived in the baby’s room. Another she was missing her two front teeth. Another she wore heavy eyeliner and dark clothes, her emo phase in high school. The one that Brayden couldn’t stop staring at had been done a couple of months prior, Hope in her burnt-orange sweater, the swell of her baby bump visible beneath her hand. “I want all of these,” Brayden said, entwining his hand with Hope’s.
“We might be able to arrange that.”
The Aunt Bea was delicious. Lavender gin, a touch of lavender syrup,lemonade, topped with club soda. Effie thought Beatrice would have approved. Looking to the unknown crowd that pointed at paintings with admiration and the friends and churchgoers that offered Grams their condolences, Effie knew she’d have been pleased with the whole event.
Grams separated herself from the well-wishers for a moment and came to catch her breath with Effie. And with Aunt Bea who stood beside them in her golden urn, tied with a pink bow. The bow was a direct order according to Tibby.
“How are you?” Effie asked.
“It’s a good day, but a sad day,” Grams said and Effie agreed.
“Was Aunt Bea always so . . .”
“Gossipy? Creative? Clever?”
“Open,” Effie asked. It was one of her favorite things about Aunt Beatrice. The bald-faced way she met the world, the brightness in her spirit, the sense that she welcomed whatever came her way.
“No,” Grams finally said after pondering it for a bit. “The fact that she put off doing this show on her own is proof enough of that.”
Grams stole Effie’s glass and took a long sip of the cocktail before answering. “There’s two ways people change. You’re either inspired by something great or you’re transformed by something painful.”
“Which was it for her do you think?”
“Well, both probably. Though, Effie dear, I think she’d tell you to run like hell toward the greatness because the pain will find you no matter what.”
“So it’s a choice to let the good stuff mold us, where the effects of hardship are unavoidable?”
“I think so, don’t you? How many people in this room do you thinkspend their time thinking about how all the bad stuff in their lives has made whatever difference without acknowledging the good? It’s always that terrible breakup, or the loss of a house, or a loved one . . . not the epic romance, or the building of a home, or the life that was lived that we focus on. Once Bea decided to do that instead, the world became wonderful, and her right along with it.”
“I don’t only want my life defined by the bad things I’ve survived,” Effie said. Though she knew her pains were fewer than many, they were deep.
“So don’t,” Grams dared.
Effie found herself standing before her own portraits moments later—the evolution of her spirit on full display through Aunt Beatrice’s eyes. The colors she used for Effie’s paintings were softer than all the others. Effie hadn’t ever compared them before, but looking now she noticed that every other portrait from Ellen to Issa had defined edges, the colors of the subject’s clothing and hair kept within the bounds of the sketch.
For Effie, though, Beatrice had let go of constraint. The puddles of dusty pink that rendered one of her favorite tops on the page faded into watery edges that spilled in cloud-like plumes where Effie’s arms should be. Her soft brown hair, whether in the pigtails of her childhood portraits or the loose layers of her most recent sitting, faded into the blankness of the background the same way giving a ghostly, ethereal effect to the images.
Effie didn’t recognize the woman who came to stand beside her. She dared a sideways glance to see the look of wonder in her eyes. The woman turned to face Effie, realizing she stood with the subject herself. “It’s you.” She looked between Effie and the paintings. “I love her choice to part with definition here,” she said pointing to the very splotches Effie was noticing for the first time.
“What do you think it means?” Effie asked, some part of her hoping that the woman beside her was versed in fine art.
The woman tilted her head to the side as though assessing. “Maybe that the subject isn’t fully formed yet. The edges and solidity are not yet defined. Or maybe it’s a reflection of the soft, feminine palette, a warmth that emanates outwardly.”
Effie nodded her thanks and the woman moved on to the portraits of Issa to their right. Effie thought it only fitting that she and the little bird share a wall since no one else in the house had managed to make friends with her. In fact, Aunt Beatrice had left Issa to Effie in her will along with some money to build a solarium off the back of the carriage house as she and Grams had always discussed for lemon trees and tropical plants and a space to endure the cold New England winters. A place for Issa to fly free.
Effie tried not to think about how it felt like it meant staying at 53 Austin for the foreseeable future. How she was irked by things staying so much the same moving forward, despite the massive loss she currently endured.
But she would see Aunt Beatrice’s wishes through. It was the least she could do for the woman who had changed Effie’s whole perspective with a painting.
Effie wasn’t finished yet. She could be malleable and undefined. She could shift and expand and radiate her inner self for all the world to see. And she could change as much or as little as she wanted. Looking at the bleeding edges of her form on the page before her, Effie realized her walls were imaginary. She didn’t keep people out, not inthe ways that mattered. If she did, Aunt Beatrice would have given her firm edges, hard lines, and decisive colors. But Effie was soft and open-hearted when she was being herself—and it was high time she started acting like it.
