Left Neglected

Chapter 26





It’s Thursday, and everyone’s been having a great vacation week. I did spend the first couple of days granny caning on eggshells after realizing that we forgot to bring the Wii up with us from Welmont, assuming this oversight was going to precipitate a monumental disaster involving tears and tantrums and a possible overnight FedEx shipment from Bob, but the kids haven’t even asked for it. Charlie and Lucy have either been outside or content to play “olden day” games inside with my mother and me, games that don’t require a left side, like I’m-Going-on-a-Picnic, I’m-Thinking-of-an-Animal, and Rock-Paper-Scissors (even the kids always beat me). My mother also bought a twelve-pack of Play-Doh, and we’ve all enjoyed hours of rolling, sculpting, and pretending (and Linus has enjoyed some unauthorized tasting).

I did remember to bring the mug of marbles, but we haven’t needed that either. With all the time they’re spending outdoors, the kids are exhausted at the end of the day, and I’ve been happy to give them an hour of Nick Jr. before bed, free of charge. And Charlie’s attention has seemed normal all week. This could be attributed to his Concerta, but my mother and I think he noticeably benefits from so much unstructured time outside, from not being confined by walls or fences or a seat in a classroom, from so much physical activity, and from days that aren’t spent rushing from one thing to the next.

And to be honest, I think I’ve been benefiting from being unplugged and unscheduled as well. The only TV I’ve seen all week is Ellen. I haven’t checked the CNN crawl or watched any news, and I don’t miss it. Of course, I miss work, but I don’t miss that jumpy feeling that comes with having to react all day at any given second to the next urgent phone call, to the thirty unexpected emails that come in while I’m in a meeting, or to whatever unforeseen crisis is undoubtedly heading my way before 6:00. Sure, it’s exciting, but so is watching the family of deer who stop to notice us while they’re crossing the field in the backyard.

My mother took Charlie and Lucy to the mountain this morning for their lessons and brought Linus along for the ride. After a lot of sincere begging, I granted Charlie his wish to switch from skis to a snowboard. He had his first lesson yesterday and absolutely loved it. Snowboarding is the coolest, and I was pronounced the coolest mom ever for letting him become a wicked cool snowboarder.

This morning over breakfast, he argued, quite skillfully, for permission to skip the lesson today and go off on his own, but I told him no. Bob and I don’t know how to snowboard, so we won’t be able to offer him any help on the slopes (assuming I get back on the slopes). He needs to learn the basic skills properly, and I have to believe that takes more than a day. He claims he’s got it down, and that today’s lesson will be BORING, but Charlie always possesses more confidence than skill, and even more impatience, and I don’t want him breaking his neck. He then tried sulking, but I didn’t budge. Then he tried roping Lucy into his cause, hoping to gang up on me and wear me down, but Lucy likes her lessons. She’s cautious and social and prefers to be under the watchful eyes and enthusiastic encouragement of the instructors. When he finally realized it was the lesson or nothing, he gave up, but he took away my “coolest mom ever” status. At least I had it for a day.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table painting a picture of the backyard, using the oils from the beautiful artist’s kit that my mother gave to me for Christmas. The kit is a smooth, plain wooden briefcase on the outside, but inside it contains rows of oil paints, pastels, acrylics, charcoal pencils, and brushes— a feast of color and creative possibility. I’ve squeezed gooey puddles of lamp black, titanium white, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw umber, alizarin crimson, and phthalo green onto my glass palette, and I’ve mixed as many combinations together with my stainless steel palette knife. Some of my mixtures turned to mud, but some swirled as if by divine magic into new colors that sing and pop and live.

Our backyard landscape already looks like an oil painting, so it’s easy inspiration—the snow-covered field guarded in the distance by maple and pine trees, the rolling hills behind them, the cloudy blue sky above, our shed painted bright barn red, the aged copper green rooster weathervane nested on its roof. It’s been years since I’ve held a paintbrush, but it comes effortlessly back to me, like riding a bike (although I’m sure riding a bike probably isn’t the best example of this for me now). Painting is all about seeing. It’s about focusing past the quick and dirty assumptions normally made by the eyes and mind and seeing what is actually there. It’s about spending leisure time in every detail. I see the sky, which isn’t simply blue but many blues and whites and grays, whitest where it touches the hills and bluest where it kisses the heavens. I see the three different tones of red on the shed produced by sunlight and shade, and the shadows of clouds dancing like sooty black ghosts along the hills.

I study my canvas and smile, satisfied with what I’ve created. I drop my brush into the glass pickle jar holding the other brushes I’ve already used and push the canvas to the side to let it dry. I sip my coffee, which is now stone cold, and rest my eyes on the view. After a few minutes, I grow tired of the yard and want something else to do. My mother should be home soon. She told me not to go wandering around the house while she’s out, and even though I’d really like to go lie down on the couch, I’ve learned my lesson from the time I “wandered” over to the refrigerator. I decide to limit my next activity to something that can be done from where I’m sitting.

My Sunday New York Times is on the table and within easy reach. I drag it over to me and begin removing sections, looking for the Week in Review. Mixed in with the folded pages, I find my mother’s People magazine. I pick it up and study the cover. Pre-accident me can’t even believe that I’m considering this. Oh what the heck. Let’s see what Angelina Jolie is up to.

I push the newspaper aside and flip open the magazine, casually taking in photographs of stars and the small snippets describing who’s seen with whom. I’m a few pages in when my mother bursts into the living room, huffing and puffing, toting Linus on her hip.

“You okay?” I ask.

“He’s getting so heavy,” says my mother.

He is heavy, similar in size and shape to a Thanksgiving turkey, but he’s actually slimmed down some since learning to walk. My mother places Linus on the floor, pulls off his boots, and unzips his coat. She then lets out a loud, cleansing exhale and looks over at me. Her face lights up.

“Aha!” she says, catching me red-handed.

“I know, I know.”

“Isn’t it great?”

“Great is a little much.”

“Oh come on, it’s fun. Call it a guilty pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with a little reading for pleasure.”

“The Sunday Times gives me pleasure.”

“Oh please! The look on your face while you’re reading that thing is more pained than Charlie’s on his worst homework day.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you look like you’re getting dental work done.”

Huh.

“But I can’t replace the New York Times with People. I still need to get the news.”

“That’s fine, but this can be good practice for you, too. Like, okay, name all the people on this page,” she says, standing over my shoulder.

“Renée Zellweger, Ben Affleck, I don’t know who that woman is, and Brad Pitt.”

“Katie Holmes, married to Tom Cruise. Anyone else?”

I look the page over again.

“No.”

“Anyone next to Brad Pitt?” she asks in a flirty voice, so I know it’s not a yes or a no, but a who answer.

Without trying to find out who is there, I go with the odds and take a guess.

“Angelina.”

“Nope,” she says, urging me in her tone to try again.

Huh. I don’t see anyone. Okay. Look left, scan left, go left. I imagine searching for my red bookmark even though I don’t have it here. Oh my God. Look at that. There he is.

“George Clooney.”

I wouldn’t think that even a traumatic brain injury could keep me from noticing him.

“Yeah, this will be good practice for me,” I say, enjoying George’s mischievous, smiling eyes.

“Good, I’m proud of you,” says my mother.

She’s never said that she was proud of me before. Not for graduating from college, not for going to Harvard Business School, not for my impressive job or my not-nearly-as-impressive-but-still-adequate parenting skills. The first time she ever tells me that she’s proud of me, it’s for reading People magazine. That might be the strangest thing a parent has ever been proud of.

“Sarah, this is beautiful,” says my mother, her attention shifting to my painting.

“Thanks.”

“Truly, you’re talented. Where did you learn to do this?”

“I took a couple of classes in college.”

“You’re really good.”

“Thanks,” I say again, watching her face enjoy what I’ve painted.

“I even like how the left sides of things are missing or fade off.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

Look left, scan left, go left. I find the left edge of the canvas with my right hand and then move my attention across the picture from left to right. The first thing I notice is the sky—completely untouched white canvas at the left border, gradually turning a cloudy gray, becoming almost clear day blue by the time I hit the right edge. It looks almost as if a foggy morning were burning off from right to left across the horizon. The maple trees have no branches on the left, the pine trees only half their green needles. And although the conservation land extends many acres beyond what the eye can see in either direction, the forest in my painting grows only on the right. The left side of each rolling hill rolls flat, and the left side of the shed sort of dissolves into nothingness. I forgot to paint the entire rooster weathervane. It stands on the left half of the shed’s roof.

I sigh and pluck a soaking brush from my glass pickle jar.

“Well, this will be good practice, too,” I say, wondering where to begin filling in the blanks.

“No, don’t. You should leave it. It’s good the way it is.”

“It is?” “It’s interesting to look at, sort of haunting or mysterious, but not creepy mysterious. It’s good. You should leave it the way it is.”

I look at my painting again and try to see it as my mother does. I try, but now instead of noticing only the right side of everything, I notice everything that is missing. Everything that is wrong.

Omissions. Flaws. Neglect. Brain damage.

“You want to watch the end of the kids’ lessons later and have lunch at the lodge?” asks my mother.

“Sure,” I say.

I continue to stare at my painting, at the brushstrokes, the shading, the composition, trying to see what my mother sees.

Trying to see what is good.