“You promised!”
“Mille, I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why can’t I hangout with your friends?”
“You can’t.”
Arthur didn’t know what he could do or what he should say. It wasn’t the first time that he had to cancel his plans with Mille but it was the first time he was supposed to meet his mother. What was a twelve-year-old to do? Not meet the mother he so desperately wanted to meet since he was told about her? Arthur had promised to bring Mille to the park across from their house; their mom did tell him yes. He didn’t think that Mille would be able to understand the excitement he felt at finally being able to meet his mother. She always had her mother. She always knew where she belonged. He always had the unknown.
Not much could be explained to a seven-year-old. Not much at all. Well, Mille was a special case. Her bones were ingrained with an extreme stubbornness that bowed down to no thing and no one. She had once gotten so mad that she wasn’t allowed to play house with Arthur that she refused to even notice his existence, which may have lasted an entire month. It was almost as if Mille knew something was up because she let the matter drop. This in itself was suspicious. Mille never let anything drop, unless it did not benefit her, then she was all over leaving the matter at rest. In fact, the matter of not taking Mille to the park was never brought up again. It greatly puzzled Arthur.
The grand trip to meet his mother consisted of a three hour drive to the middle of nowhere just to look at an art gallery that was closing down. An art gallery. Even a two-year-old would know that an art gallery was not their mother. However upset Arthur was, the paintings that lay lifeless against the wall captured his easily swayed attention.
The backdrop of each painting was the same: grayscale. If it weren’t for the eye-grabbing blindly bright colored shrubbery and buildings that lay scattered among the grayscale, it would have been abundantly clear of the sequence to the paintings. But that sequence didn’t flow because the gallery had purposefully unorganized the paintings in an attempt to create a feeling of disharmony the artist was known to not have. Saké was known for her harmony and order. Each of her paintings would carry on something from the last to create the harmony and continuation she sought in her daily life.
This grayscale background was different from her normal style. Everything felt more purposeful, clouds existed in places clouds usually wouldn’t exist. The lines of the sky were slightly disorderly and most definitely not natural. They were ominous lines that told of hurricanes and wind storms that ripped families apart. It was a stark contrast to the vivacious tuff of pale green grass, or the berry bush blushing red with ripened fruit. The little spots of color spoke of life and joy, while the background spoke of death and loneliness. No plant or building was ever repeated and no color stained the black and white canvases more then once.
The centerpiece of the show was a low lying minka. The soft brown and creamy white that made up the outside of the building led the eye to the red river clay tiles of the roof that gently sloped upwards. Youthful bamboo shoots sprung up in front of the house and a sapling grew off to the left a little ways behind the building. A small crystal blue fish pond held three flaming orange and yellow koi fish and was surrounded by nine custom chiseled cold gray mountain stones. The stones created a lip around the edge of the pond; it was just enough to trip anyone who did not pay attention to where they stepped.
What caught the eye was not the gold leaf that showed the shadows, it was the solemn purple Fucanglong head seated in the middle of the courtyard. It lay on its side, obliviously knocked over and uncared for. The large stern eyes of the mask looked sad dashed with a hint of the blue from the pond. A golden whisker lay trashed near the red ornate entrance gate of the courtyard. The deep purple dye of the Fucanglong mask seeped into the gray grass, staining it the purple-red of a bleeding beetroot. In a forgetful manner a tokkuri lay hidden among the trampled grass, shards of once beautifully hand-painted sakazuki lay glittering with saké alongside it.
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While the visual impact of the exhibition was tarnished by the purposeful misplacement of the paintings, the centerpiece was unforgettable. Joy and sadness existed at peace. It was dissonantly harmonic.
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“Do I know you?”
The disheveled man who had arrived on their cabin door cleaned up nicely. Clean hair and a dry change of clothes did wonders for him. After cleaning up the kitchen, Mille had made a dinner of bakery fresh bread slathered in garlic butter and slippery spaghetti generously coated in a rich tomato sauce. This drove the sickly pallor from the man and exchanged it with a familiar, but foreign aura of soft sternness.
“I don’t know you. Or her. Are you here on your honeymoon?”
“Sadly we’re siblings.”
“I’m real offended that you can’t stand my presence Miss Million.”
“I’m glad you finally understand how much I should be getting for my monthly allowance.”
“Are you always bickering?”
“She starts it.”
“I don’t start a single thing. You just leave yourself open for attack.”
“I suppose this would be a bad time to talk about where I am to sleep?”
“Sleep in the smaller room and I get the master still because I’m the only female. You wouldn’t want to lose a chance to prove your manliness Artie, now would you?”
“Fine.”
“Maybe since you have the entire kitchen and living room to yourself you could find time to talk to your poor editor.”
“I think you should try being a scam artist. You might actually make money from that.”
“Gee, thanks for your confidence in me.”
“Kids these days.”
With a joint protest at being called a kid, Arthur and Mille stopped arguing long enough to move most of Arthur’s stuff to the living room. He snagged one of Mille’s blankets and pillows generously informing her that she need not be a hog. With a final goodnight, the house became quiet as its inhabitants settled down for the night’s rest.
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“Roman, you can’t keep hiding like this. When will you pick up the damn phone? You’re such a fucking coward. You created this shit show and then you left. Your daughter doesn’t even know what you look like! I’ve tried for so long to keep everything together. So long. It’s been four years since I’ve seen or heard from you. Four years! Where are you? Come home. Please. I need you.”
Arthur left the house quickly, dragging Mille along with him. He knew it was wrong to eavesdrop but he couldn’t trust his mom anymore. Not after she had blown up at Mille for getting a 89.5% on a mock quiz. It was still an A, although not a perfect A, it was an A. Bridget was blinder then a bat flying in the middle of the day to not see the mountain of stress and anxiety piling up on her eleven-year-old daughter’s shoulders. Dwelling on the past and remembering it did nothing but cause more pain. It was best to forget it and pretend it never happened—move on with life.
“Why? Why does this happen to us?”
Mille’s voice cracked as the question Arthur had been asking himself his whole life tumbled from her lips. What had they done to deserve this? What had he done to deserve it? Nothing. Nothing could be done to fix it. So he left under the shifty promise that people would treat Mille better if he was gone. She didn’t need to face the same disdainful stares and listen to the whispers in the hallways of the houses owned by their relatives. Maybe if he was gone people would forget that he was the “Great Star of Disaster.” Maybe if he was gone people would forget that he was alive.
“Because people get so caught up looking at who we are on the surface that when they try to look deeper into who we are that all they see are their own blaring inadequacies. They use us to cover up their own insecurities and misgivings. We get picked on the most because they think we’re weak enough to stoop down to their level, but let me tell you Milan Amethyst Devon, as long as you never give up you’ll always be better. You have the right to go into the world and do anything your little heart desires. You’re only as good as you let yourself be. If you can’t push past what holds you back, you’re never going to be the best version of yourself.”
“That goes for you too.”
“Oh Mille, my sweet angelic sister, I lost my wings a long time ago. You’ll be able to fly places I could never dream of going. I’m already on the same level as those cowards who hide behind the miserable cloak of hurtful words. Soar as high as you want little angel, I’ll make sure you always have a safe place to land.”