Read Online The Other Side of Blue by Valerie O. Patterson - Free Book Online
Authors: Valerie O. Patterson
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my back against the bookcase. She doesnât ask why I donât paint. Maybe sheâs afraid my answer is like an illness that will infect her, too, and she wonât be able to learn to paint and please her dad.
Finally, when I continue to stand mute, she slips off the bed and tiptoes out again.
After she leaves, I return the box to its place on the dresser and lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Suddenly, I feel tired from the heat outside. In my pocket, I feel for the Prussian blue oil paint that I took from Motherâs studio. The
cool metal edge curls where Mother has rolled up the end like a toothpaste tube, squeezing out the dark blue paint in small smudges against her palette. I should have hidden it by now, but I like the cool feel of it in my pocket. Prussian blue was developed in the sixteen hundreds. It became favored among artists because it didnât fade like indigo, and it cost less than cobalt.
When I was little, I pretended to be an artist like my mother. On Christmas Eve when I was seven, my grandmother on my motherâs side gave me dough she made herself with salt and flour. I cut out bell shapes with cookie cutters and we baked them while Mother painted in her studio. Back then, she had a studio at the university, and we lived in an apartment on campus. The ornaments smelled like bread coming out of the oven. After they cooled, Grandmother Betts let me decorate them with thick paint in red, blue, and yellowâprimary colorsâwith a set of paints sheâd bought just for me. We hung the ornaments that evening. When Mother got home, she said they smelled up the house and that I was too young to handle paints. Grandmotherâs voice got tinny and cold, but she didnât get into an argument. After Epiphany, after Grandmother had returned to her winter retreat in Florida, Mother threw out the dough ornaments along with the tree. From the frosted window, I watched Dad haul it down to the curb on a Thursday when the garbage men were coming to truck away all the dead trees. When I cried and asked why, Mother said the ornaments
wouldnât keep; theyâd mold. My grandmother had said art was for children. But dough ornaments werenât even art, Mother said.
After Dad died last summer, I found one of the ornaments, a blue bell, in a pin box in his sock drawer at home. Bits of it had crumbled off, but I knew what it was. It still smelled clean, like salt. I hid the box from Mother before she cleared out his things.
I donât know why Dad kept that blue bell. Besides books, he saved littleâhis grandfatherâs hammer, his motherâs wedding band after she died when I was eight, and an oil painting barely bigger than two inches square, with a scene of a gondola, a bridge, and clothes hanging on a line across a canal. He and Mother went to Venice on their honeymoon, so I assumed Mother had painted it herself. But when I held the small square frame to the Maine light, I saw the name Giuseppe along the edge. Someone else, not Mother, had painted it. So why did Dad keep it? What about Venice had stayed with him?
I want to ask him those questions. But now I will never know.
Chapter Ten
T HE NEXT MORNING , Martia knocks on my doorâI know itâs Martia because she taps in a special rhythmâtwo short raps, a pause, and two more raps. I pull my fingers through my tangled hair. Last night I changed into a fresh T-shirt from my suitcase. It still holds the scent of the dryer sheets we use in Maine.
When I open the door, Martia motions for me to follow her. Intrigued, I tiptoe after her. Her skirt and blouse smell as fresh as sunshine. Martia doesnât believe that we should use electric dryers for our clothes, not when the sun is âfor free.â But how can I explain Maine to her? How the damp gray air almost never dries out?
Martia knocks gently on Kammiâs door. Kammi opens it, grinning. Just like the first afternoon when we walked over to
Finally, when I continue to stand mute, she slips off the bed and tiptoes out again.
After she leaves, I return the box to its place on the dresser and lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Suddenly, I feel tired from the heat outside. In my pocket, I feel for the Prussian blue oil paint that I took from Motherâs studio. The
cool metal edge curls where Mother has rolled up the end like a toothpaste tube, squeezing out the dark blue paint in small smudges against her palette. I should have hidden it by now, but I like the cool feel of it in my pocket. Prussian blue was developed in the sixteen hundreds. It became favored among artists because it didnât fade like indigo, and it cost less than cobalt.
When I was little, I pretended to be an artist like my mother. On Christmas Eve when I was seven, my grandmother on my motherâs side gave me dough she made herself with salt and flour. I cut out bell shapes with cookie cutters and we baked them while Mother painted in her studio. Back then, she had a studio at the university, and we lived in an apartment on campus. The ornaments smelled like bread coming out of the oven. After they cooled, Grandmother Betts let me decorate them with thick paint in red, blue, and yellowâprimary colorsâwith a set of paints sheâd bought just for me. We hung the ornaments that evening. When Mother got home, she said they smelled up the house and that I was too young to handle paints. Grandmotherâs voice got tinny and cold, but she didnât get into an argument. After Epiphany, after Grandmother had returned to her winter retreat in Florida, Mother threw out the dough ornaments along with the tree. From the frosted window, I watched Dad haul it down to the curb on a Thursday when the garbage men were coming to truck away all the dead trees. When I cried and asked why, Mother said the ornaments
wouldnât keep; theyâd mold. My grandmother had said art was for children. But dough ornaments werenât even art, Mother said.
After Dad died last summer, I found one of the ornaments, a blue bell, in a pin box in his sock drawer at home. Bits of it had crumbled off, but I knew what it was. It still smelled clean, like salt. I hid the box from Mother before she cleared out his things.
I donât know why Dad kept that blue bell. Besides books, he saved littleâhis grandfatherâs hammer, his motherâs wedding band after she died when I was eight, and an oil painting barely bigger than two inches square, with a scene of a gondola, a bridge, and clothes hanging on a line across a canal. He and Mother went to Venice on their honeymoon, so I assumed Mother had painted it herself. But when I held the small square frame to the Maine light, I saw the name Giuseppe along the edge. Someone else, not Mother, had painted it. So why did Dad keep it? What about Venice had stayed with him?
I want to ask him those questions. But now I will never know.
Chapter Ten
T HE NEXT MORNING , Martia knocks on my doorâI know itâs Martia because she taps in a special rhythmâtwo short raps, a pause, and two more raps. I pull my fingers through my tangled hair. Last night I changed into a fresh T-shirt from my suitcase. It still holds the scent of the dryer sheets we use in Maine.
When I open the door, Martia motions for me to follow her. Intrigued, I tiptoe after her. Her skirt and blouse smell as fresh as sunshine. Martia doesnât believe that we should use electric dryers for our clothes, not when the sun is âfor free.â But how can I explain Maine to her? How the damp gray air almost never dries out?
Martia knocks gently on Kammiâs door. Kammi opens it, grinning. Just like the first afternoon when we walked over to
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