The Singing Trees by Boo Walker

Chapter 11

THE BROKEN ONES

Thomas brought Emma over three days after Christmas. Following a quick exchange among the three of them about the nightmare that was the country club dinner, he left the two girls and took his skates to a local pond for a workout. Annalisa couldn’t deny that his willingness to drive so much out of his way for his sister was terribly attractive. If he wasn’t careful, she might actually fall hard.

Though Emma was growing more comfortable around Annalisa, she was very shy around Nonna when they were introduced. “It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Mancuso.” Her words fell out of her mouth like stones as she pulled at her green sweater.

Nonna surprised Annalisa by warmly approaching Emma, who was a few inches taller, and looking up at her. “And you, too, Emma. I hope you’re hungry.” They were in the kitchen, and for the occasion Nonna had made a batch of Italian pastries called sfogliatelle, which had filled the house with a delicious candied aroma.

“My brother told me to bring my appetite,” Emma said, looking toward the oven.

Nonna smiled at her and patted the girl’s cheek. “Always when you come here.”

Emma’s body instantly relaxed, and Annalisa’s heart soared. Her grandmother could be so incredibly sweet when she wanted to be.

Annalisa took her around the house, pointing out her favorites of the pieces she’d done over the years. Either Emma was extremely impressed and interested or putting on a great act. The pieces featured most prominently in the living room were typically from the happier stages of her life. Though she’d never admit to it, Nonna tended to hang the more depressing paintings in less conspicuous spots, like above the toilet. Still, she did hang all of them, which meant something.

Once in Annalisa’s bedroom, she said to Emma, “This is my room and my studio. I like to paint outside when it’s warm, but this is where I am all winter.”

They both looked from right to left: the bed pushed as close as it could be to the closet and then her messy work space with an easel, chair, and a desk splattered with acrylic and cluttered with paint tubes, brushes, palette knives, and color studies.

Emma studied the pieces hanging on the wall, where Annalisa kept her latest works, including two nudes that were still drying. She quickly realized it might have been a good idea to take them down before having a fourteen-year-old enter the room. “Sorry, they might be a bit much for you.”

Emma blushed. “My mom would never let me paint these. Nonna doesn’t care?” The girl looked at the painting of a nude brunette stretched out on a yellow couch like it was an image of the Loch Ness Monster.

“I’m a little bit older,” Annalisa said. “This is part of learning. In fact, every art school has classes with live models who sit nude while you paint them. How about that?”

“No . . . ,” Emma said, with equal amounts of shock and excitement.

“Yes!” Annalisa loved this. Emma could be beautiful when she opened up.

Still staring at the brunette, she asked, “Have you had a class like that?”

“Not yet,” Annalisa admitted, thinking that the Mills would never offer such a class, even for adults. “But I’m sure I will one day. All these paintings are from books and my imagination. Do you want to paint something? Not a nude but anything you’d like.”

Emma finally pulled her eyes away. “Are you sure?”

“Why not?” Annalisa asked. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to teach you.”

“What would we paint?” Emma glanced over at the table of paints and brushes.

Annalisa crossed the room and waved Emma over. “I think abstracts might be the best way to start. The less thinking the better for now. Sometimes it’s fun just to see what comes out.”

Though Annalisa preferred painting on stretched canvas, their financial situation had steered her to heavyweight paper. As Emma sat, Annalisa handed her a smock and took a sheet of paper she’d already primed with gesso and clipped it to the easel. Very often, Annalisa sketched her paintings on a separate pad before mixing paints, but in this case she wanted to keep it simple.

For the next hour, she showed Emma the basics, starting with choosing a brush, applying a color wash, then mixing the paints to obtain the perfect color.

“Let go of any kind of rules for this one,” Annalisa coached her. “Just have fun. Nothing matters but finding colors you love and putting them on the page.”

“So anything?” Emma looked like she’d been set free for the first time in her life.

Annalisa handed her the brush. “There are absolutely no rules. Well, there is one today. Whatever you do, put your heart into it. But don’t worry about what comes out. Just enjoy the motions and fall into the spell.”

Emma shed the rest of her nervousness and started to find the meditative beauty of brushing colors across the paper. As the painting came alive in a blast of abstract shapes, the two fell into conversation.

Annalisa knew Emma had some heavy things to get off her chest, so she prodded her enough with her own story until the girl felt very comfortable speaking to her. Emma talked about her childhood first, and all her memories seemed to revolve around Thomas.

“I’m just glad he stuck around,” Emma said a few minutes later. “He wouldn’t ever admit it, but I know he stayed home for me.” Annalisa knew that to be true and was still impressed by his devotion to his sister. Using a fan brush, Emma dragged a streak of turquoise across the top corner of the page.

“Try a little lighter touch with that one,” Annalisa said, kneeling next to her. “Can I show you?” She took the brush and used a much more tender motion, the bristles mere feathers. Annalisa noticed Emma gravitated toward circular movements but wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Emma copied Annalisa’s technique as she let loose more of her inner world. “I don’t know what I would have done if he’d left me. Probably run away. My dad doesn’t like me, and my mom isn’t even awake half the time. You saw firsthand. Ever since she found out my dad was cheating, she’s been like that. I’m sure Thomas told you about it.”

“What? He didn’t, actually.” Annalisa was surprised, considering how much they’d shared with each other. Not that Mr. Barnes being a cheater shocked her.

“Yeah, a few years ago,” Emma said. “I came home sick one day, while my mom was out of town visiting her parents in New Hampshire. My dad walked out of his bedroom with another woman.”

Annalisa touched her arm. “That’s horrible.”

Emma kept painting, as if the act were as comforting to her as it was to Annalisa. “He tried to keep me from telling her, and I didn’t until about two years ago. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Annalisa’s mouth had fallen open in disgust. “And that’s why you say your dad doesn’t like you, because he didn’t have the guts to tell your mom himself?”

Emma pulled the brush from the page. “Welcome to the Barnes family. We’re like the Cleavers on the outside, but once you crack us open, there’s a whole world of crazy to explore. He was the nicest guy in the world for a little while, trying to keep me on his team, until I broke his trust. Then he flipped. On all of us.”

Was that why Emma was on the cliff that day?Annalisa wondered. “So when did Thomas find out?”

“I told Thomas first, and then we told my mom together.” Emma showed her hurt as if it had happened yesterday. “That was the day our family fell apart. Thomas started hating our dad and started sticking up for me. That’s why he didn’t move out, to protect me. And I guess to be with me . . .”

“What a good brother he is,” Annalisa said. “God, I bet you want out of Davenport as badly as I want to get out of here. Maybe you should come with me.”

Emma glanced over. “Oh God, I’d love that more than anything.”

Realizing Emma had taken her too seriously, Annalisa backtracked, “As soon as you graduate, Portland and I will be waiting.”

Emma deflated. “Yeah, I know. Three more years. Then I’m definitely leaving. I mean, I think so. I hate to leave my mom with my dad alone, but I can’t take it.”

Annalisa tried to lift Emma back up. “So where would you go? If you could go anywhere in the world after you graduate.”

Emma dabbed her brush into the paint and took it to the paper. “If my brother goes to NYU, then that’s where I’d like to go. I just have to keep my grades up.”

Thinking Emma had to let go of Thomas at some point, she said, “Let’s switch brushes.” Taking the fan brush from Emma’s hand, she dropped it into the water and handed her a small round one. “This is what I use most. If you’re steady, you can paint some wonderful detail with this brush.”

While Emma tested out an even lighter shade of blue, Annalisa said, “Before New York then, you just need to find something you love to do. I’d be happy to keep teaching you to paint, or you might find something else. Maybe buy a guitar. If you’re like Thomas, you can start watching hockey, though I think we both feel the same way about sports.” They shared a knowing smile.

There was a knock on the door, and Thomas poked his head in. “Hi, guys. Having fun yet?” He was like a ray of light entering the room.

“You’re already back?” Emma said with disappointment. “We’re not done yet.”

He took a step back. “No rush, sis. I can hang out with Nonna for a little while.” He looked at Annalisa for approval.

“Give us a few more minutes,” Annalisa said, smiling at her boyfriend. That’s right, her boyfriend!

After he closed the door, they finished their conversation. Then Emma dropped her brush into the can. “Maybe I could come back and finish it one day?”

Annalisa studied what Emma had done. There was a beauty in the circular motion of the painting and in the colors Emma had come up with. Emma had certainly followed her one lesson: to put her heart into it. “I think there’s an artist in you just begging to get out.”

Emma loved that comment. “I had a lot of fun.”

The two girls hugged, and Annalisa said, “We’ll do it again soon.”

When the girls left the room, they found Thomas sitting on the couch, talking to Nonna in her recliner. Annalisa wondered if he was slowly chipping away at her grandmother, or if she was holding strong. Either way, he was very sweet to make an attempt.

“Thank you for having me,” Emma said to Nonna.

“You’re welcome,” Nonna replied happily. “Come back anytime.”

After walking them out, Annalisa returned to the house, wondering what Nonna was thinking about all this, these two Davenporters in her home. Apropos Annalisa’s own opinion, she thought that she had a lot in common with Thomas and Emma, and she enjoyed having them in her life. Both of them gave her a sense of purpose outside of her art.

Back inside, she settled onto the couch. “So? I know you have something to say.”

Nonna pointed to the door. “I’d be careful with that one.”

“Who?” Annalisa asked. “Thomas? I think you’ve warned me enough.”

Nonna sat up and started to stand. “No. Emma. She likes you a lot. You’ll break her heart if something happens between you and Thomas.”

“As if I can control that.”

Nonna pressed up. “I think it’s very nice of you what you’re doing, but she’s troubled, Annalisa. Maybe more than you ever were.” With that, her grandmother disappeared down the hall.

Thomas returned every few days through the winter, and Annalisa craved time with him. He brought Emma over twice more, and the two girls spent an hour or two painting and chatting while he killed time in the Mills or hung out with Nonna. He always made it a point to tell Annalisa how grateful he was for her help with Emma and that Emma had been in such a better mood lately.

Annalisa painted more than ever, wishing she could leap forward in time to her graduation. She’d been so caught up in the news lately, and in attempting to understand it, that most of her newer ideas came from real life. She captured a group of protesters going up against the police in Boston. Still wrestling with her feelings about the draft, she painted Nixon having his head shaved. She’d seen enough images of soldiers in Vietnam that she painted them, too, imagining their daily lives in a far-off land.

Wishing she had more access to the outside world of art, Annalisa counted the days leading up to the art show in April that Jackie had mentioned, the one run by Sharon Maxwell, the abstract expressionist and teacher at the Portland School of Fine and Applied Art. More than anything, she needed to see and experience some great pieces firsthand. Enough with all the books.

On the third Saturday in February, Annalisa agreed to take the day off so that Thomas could take her skiing. Though she didn’t want to lose the money from skipping a shift, the idea of skiing for the first time won out. Besides, between painting, schoolwork, and afternoon and weekend shifts at Harry’s General Store, she needed a break.

Wearing her heavy jacket, she slipped out the door and shook her head when she saw that the snow had already covered up the walkway that she’d shoveled an hour earlier. What was the point? At least they didn’t have a car, or Nonna would have made her shovel the entire driveway.

Two sets of skis were strapped to the top of his Beetle, and he wore a ski hat and white wool sweater. Jumping inside, she gave him a quick kiss, hoping Nonna wasn’t staring out the window. Her grandmother seemed to be coming around as far as Thomas was concerned—at least she hadn’t said anything discouraging lately—but Annalisa didn’t want to get a lesson about the birds and the bees when she returned that night.

As they left the neighborhood, she said, “I forgot to tell you, my cousin Michael, the one with the low draft number? He enlisted in the navy today.” Men with Thomas’s birthday had been called up three days earlier, so this was a hot topic between them. Thank God, as Thomas had promised her, his deferment had kept him safe.

“I don’t blame him,” Thomas said flatly. “Why wait until his number’s called?”

Everyone knew that enlisting, as opposed to waiting for a draft notice, gave young men a better chance at surviving the war. Drafted men most often went straight to the front lines in the army, whereas the enlisted men could pick and choose their trajectory, and very often secure a safer path.

“Exactly,” Annalisa agreed, wondering if she detected something off in his tone. She noticed he was driving slower than usual too. “So what’s going on with you? You know, you’re terrible at hiding it when something’s wrong.”

Thomas cast a serious glance her way. “You won’t believe this.”

Her excitement about learning to ski hit the floorboard. “These days, I’ll believe just about anything.”

He didn’t speak until he’d reached a stop sign. “My dad says he’s cutting me off and that I have to be out of the house by the end of the semester if you and I keep seeing each other. He even threatened taking away my inheritance.”

Annalisa’s jaw instantly tightened. “What? Are you kidding me?”

He nodded, not moving on from their position. “He says I have to end it by summer, says if I keep supporting this relationship and choose distraction, then he isn’t going to support me.”

Annalisa threw her hands up into the air as a bitter taste hit her tongue. “How does he even know we’re still together? Has he hired a private investigator?”

“No,” he said with disgust, watching a car pass by them in the other lane. “I told him. I’m tired of keeping us a secret. And you know what? If he doesn’t want to support me, I don’t need it.”

Was she truly such a bad person, a bad match for Thomas, that his father would attempt to destroy his son’s life over it? Screw Mr. Barnes for such judgment. What a small-minded jerk. Could he not see how wonderful a man Thomas was? Couldn’t he trust his son’s decisions?

“I’m so sorry,” Annalisa finally said, wishing life didn’t have to be so cruel.

He side-eyed her and nearly hissed out, “What’s there to be sorry for? That my dad’s an asshole? You have nothing to do with that.”

Annalisa kept quiet and ended up staring at the dashboard until he pulled away, driving them away from town. As much as she was giving to this relationship, doing everything she could to let her walls down, it was moments like this that felt like a huge step backward.

The energy in the car tightened with Thomas’s anger. Was this how it all began? Were they getting in each other’s way?

“What if I transferred to UMPG?” he asked, knocking the wind right out of her. UMPG was the public university in Portland.

“You can’t drop out of Weston,” Annalisa said, thinking about his deferment.

His forearms tensed as he gripped the steering wheel hard. “I absolutely can. Matter of fact, I couldn’t afford it without my parents’ help anyway.”

Trying to soften him, she placed a hand on his leg and asked quietly, “What about a scholarship?”

He calmed down some. “They won’t give me one at Weston, but I can easily get one at UMPG. That’s what I’m saying.”

Her heart sank at the idea that she might be the reason he lost his dream of dental school or of an inheritance. What if they broke up after moving there? He couldn’t change his life because of her. The pressure alone could be like an iceberg poking at the hull of their relationship.

“You’d be foolish to leave one of the best schools in New England—maybe even the country—to move to Portland. And what about your sister?” The trees were getting taller and the buildings sparser.

He pressed down the gas pedal, suddenly racing toward Sugarloaf. “My father thinks I’d be stupid, but from where I’m standing, stupid would be choosing my education and inheritance over you.”

She didn’t know what to say, flattered but afraid at the same time.

“As far as my sister, she’ll support me. She knows I can’t live at home forever.”

“I’m not so sure.” Annalisa felt very strongly that Emma was in no position to lose her brother.

He reached for her hand, and she could see that he was trying to relax. “I love you, Anna, and I want to marry you. I don’t care about a degree from Weston.”

The L-word and the M-word scared her. She had strong feelings for him, too, no question. He’d shown at every turn that he’d be there for her, but every single day created more vulnerability—with her heart, her career, his heart and career, and even Emma’s.

Unsure how to chip away at the conflict between her head and heart, she attacked the more obvious point. “What about dental school?”

“I can still get into dental school from UMPG.” He let go of her hand to change gears. “Think about it, Anna. You graduate in a few months. I could wrap up the semester and transfer. My deferment wouldn’t change. And we could move down to Portland together, get our own place.”

It was a good thing he couldn’t see her face. She felt like he’d just intentionally swung off the road for a bumpy race through the trees.

He said, “Imagine that. You and I in the city, finally free of all this bullshit.”

In theory, the idea was nice, even wonderful, but . . . “I’m not ready to get married, Thomas. I’m not even ready to talk about marriage—not that I don’t have strong feelings for you. It’s just . . . a few months ago I wasn’t even interested in a relationship.”

“Things have changed, haven’t they?” he said, glancing over. “For both of us. I didn’t know I’d find you. The day before I met you, I thought I’d have to leave the state to find my soul mate.”

“You weren’t supposed to find me,” she said with frustration. He was right; they were soul mates, but they’d met too soon. “I had everything under control. I had my life worked out.”

Thomas shifted down to make a turn. “Well, I’m sorry. What am I supposed to say? It’s happened. We’ve happened. And there’s no going back. Not for me, at least. I love you, and my whole life changed the second I saw you in that museum. Sure, we don’t come from the same places, and we have a few obstacles to deal with, but I don’t care. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing can stop us.”

She gripped her jeans, desperately wanting to tell him how she felt. “I . . . I . . .” She couldn’t do it.

“What?” he asked.

Was it this hard to tell a guy that she loved him? The problem was it felt more like an admission out of guilt than it did a gesture of attraction. It was way too heavy a conversation. Annalisa had climbed into his car to go skiing, not to map out the rest of her life. Her mind and heart were in overload. Yes, she loved him, but was that enough? Admitting it could make things worse.

She gave up trying. “I don’t know what to say, Thomas. You’re the thing I didn’t plan for in life, and I do care about you. But we’re young. What if we’re too young to make such big decisions? What if choosing us is the one thing we end up regretting?”

He bit his lip. “I’m not asking you to put me before your career. Is that what this is about? I never would ask that of you. I want to join you in whatever it is you have planned. I get that you’re an artist, and that’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. I love that about you. That might be my favorite thing about you, but you don’t have to choose; that’s what I’m trying to say. Let’s chase our dreams together. The deal is . . .you are what gets me out of bed in the morning.”

The love pouring over her was almost more than she could handle, and part of her could have opened the door and jumped out, her body rolling off the shoulder into the safety of a ditch. “I’m afraid.”

He put a hand on her thigh again. “I know you are. Me too. But I’m more afraid of what happens if we say goodbye. I don’t need my parents’ approval. All I need is you. The rest will fall into place.”

Would it fall into place?she wondered. He couldn’t know that. They could just as easily run off the road into a fiery explosion.