Homer, in the final days of World War I. He and Homer had been very close as boys,
with the more robust Homer looking after his frail, artistic brother, Fitzgerald. After Homer Cotton's death, Fitzgerald Cotton's creative genius was stilled. For years he could not paint, and he became more and more depressed. His behavior grew erratic and increasingly strange, and his parents feared for his sanity. They urged him to move back to his childhood home in Shady Grove, California, to let them care for him. They arranged for him to travel in Europe in 1924, after he told them that his lifelong dream was to study Renaissance painting in Italy, the land of his ancestors.
While studying in Padua, Cotton traced his own roots through a direct bloodline back to Lorenzo da Padova, a fifteenth-century painter of the Magi School. Cotton returned to California in 1925, his artistic drive restored. His work took on new intensity, with hints of da Padova's brilliant style.
The appearance some months later, in the spring of 1925, of the mysterious woman Cotton referred to as his muse is credited by many art critics and scholars as instrumental in breaking through Cotton's depression, though other scholars maintain that it was Cotton's use of rare, ancient paints obtained during his Italian sojournâpaints reputedly once belonging to Lorenzo da Padova himselfâthat gave his art new life. Nonetheless, Cotton's painter's block was ended. The body of work painted between 1925 and 1926 features his anonymous muse and is imbued with a fresh style and vibrancy.
I stopped reading. "I don't believe it," I said flatly, right out loud as if Doug or Crystal or somebody were there to argue with me. "Mom wasn't even
born
in 1926. Even her
parents
weren't born yet! It just doesn't make sense."
I wished Doug or Crystal were there. I didn't like being alone with this. Whatever
this
was. My eyes scanned the next page.
After a year, Cotton's muse disappeared as suddenly as she'd appeared. Cotton's painting style changed again. His work became dark and sinister. The cheerful vibrancy of the muse period was gone forever, replaced by the undertone of menace that haunted Cotton's work until his death by suicide, in 1928.
I turned the pages, staring down at grim, grainy-looking paintings, all grays and blacks and blues, with strange swirling shapes that reminded me of ships lost at sea. In some of the paintings there was a little face of a man down in the right-hand corner, with a creepy, unpleasant smile. I wondered if that was what Fitzgerald Cotton had looked like. I wasn't sure what "undertone of menace" meant, but I sure didn't like Cotton's later work.
Then the door to my bedroom crashed open, hitting the wall, and Mom stood there, cheeks red and eyes blazing. I edged toward the wall, suddenly understanding "undertone of menace" perfectly. If Mom hadn't already taken my phone away, I might have grabbed it and dialled 9-1-1.
Mom approached the bed. She slapped her hand down hard on the book like she wished it were
me
she was hitting. Her voice came out tight and controlled and icy. I'd never seen her so mad in my whole lifeânot even when I spilled my Coke all over my computer once and wrecked the whole thing. But there was something else, too, besides mad.
"I told you this is
my
book. I told you not to touch it." Her voice squeaked a little at the end, and I saw that behind her icy anger, she was so scared she was shaking. Her fear made me remember this was my
mom,
not some crazy witch, no matter how weird she was acting.
So I took a deep breath, like Ashleigh always tells me to when Crystal's bugging me. "Mom," I said quietly. "Tell me about the pictures."
"You saw them?" asked Mom, her voice squeaking again in what sounded to me like panic. "
All of them?
" She bent over the book and flicked frantically through the pages. Then she picked up the heavy book and shook it. A piece of folded paper fluttered out of the back and she caught it in a
with the more robust Homer looking after his frail, artistic brother, Fitzgerald. After Homer Cotton's death, Fitzgerald Cotton's creative genius was stilled. For years he could not paint, and he became more and more depressed. His behavior grew erratic and increasingly strange, and his parents feared for his sanity. They urged him to move back to his childhood home in Shady Grove, California, to let them care for him. They arranged for him to travel in Europe in 1924, after he told them that his lifelong dream was to study Renaissance painting in Italy, the land of his ancestors.
While studying in Padua, Cotton traced his own roots through a direct bloodline back to Lorenzo da Padova, a fifteenth-century painter of the Magi School. Cotton returned to California in 1925, his artistic drive restored. His work took on new intensity, with hints of da Padova's brilliant style.
The appearance some months later, in the spring of 1925, of the mysterious woman Cotton referred to as his muse is credited by many art critics and scholars as instrumental in breaking through Cotton's depression, though other scholars maintain that it was Cotton's use of rare, ancient paints obtained during his Italian sojournâpaints reputedly once belonging to Lorenzo da Padova himselfâthat gave his art new life. Nonetheless, Cotton's painter's block was ended. The body of work painted between 1925 and 1926 features his anonymous muse and is imbued with a fresh style and vibrancy.
I stopped reading. "I don't believe it," I said flatly, right out loud as if Doug or Crystal or somebody were there to argue with me. "Mom wasn't even
born
in 1926. Even her
parents
weren't born yet! It just doesn't make sense."
I wished Doug or Crystal were there. I didn't like being alone with this. Whatever
this
was. My eyes scanned the next page.
After a year, Cotton's muse disappeared as suddenly as she'd appeared. Cotton's painting style changed again. His work became dark and sinister. The cheerful vibrancy of the muse period was gone forever, replaced by the undertone of menace that haunted Cotton's work until his death by suicide, in 1928.
I turned the pages, staring down at grim, grainy-looking paintings, all grays and blacks and blues, with strange swirling shapes that reminded me of ships lost at sea. In some of the paintings there was a little face of a man down in the right-hand corner, with a creepy, unpleasant smile. I wondered if that was what Fitzgerald Cotton had looked like. I wasn't sure what "undertone of menace" meant, but I sure didn't like Cotton's later work.
Then the door to my bedroom crashed open, hitting the wall, and Mom stood there, cheeks red and eyes blazing. I edged toward the wall, suddenly understanding "undertone of menace" perfectly. If Mom hadn't already taken my phone away, I might have grabbed it and dialled 9-1-1.
Mom approached the bed. She slapped her hand down hard on the book like she wished it were
me
she was hitting. Her voice came out tight and controlled and icy. I'd never seen her so mad in my whole lifeânot even when I spilled my Coke all over my computer once and wrecked the whole thing. But there was something else, too, besides mad.
"I told you this is
my
book. I told you not to touch it." Her voice squeaked a little at the end, and I saw that behind her icy anger, she was so scared she was shaking. Her fear made me remember this was my
mom,
not some crazy witch, no matter how weird she was acting.
So I took a deep breath, like Ashleigh always tells me to when Crystal's bugging me. "Mom," I said quietly. "Tell me about the pictures."
"You saw them?" asked Mom, her voice squeaking again in what sounded to me like panic. "
All of them?
" She bent over the book and flicked frantically through the pages. Then she picked up the heavy book and shook it. A piece of folded paper fluttered out of the back and she caught it in a
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