Nevada Barr - Bittersweet

He had been bitten by the gold bug and Imogene had a job. Eighty-five dollars a month. Imogene stayed up half the night, too excited to sleep, writing lesson plans by the light of a lamp turned low so that the glare wouldn’t keep Sarah from her rest.

From then on, Imogene spent her days at Bishop Whitaker’s School, helping Kate prepare for the fall term. Sarah was alone much of the time. Most days she rose and sometimes she dressed herself, but the sickness had taken its toll and she showed little interest in life.

Disturbed by her apathy, Imogene went to the railroad station and unearthed Sarah’s watercolors, bought two new camel’s-hair brushes that they could ill afford, and borrowed a generously upholstered parlor chair from Lutie so Sarah would be comfortable.

On a hot day in mid-September, Sarah sat curled up in her chair. A dry desert wind blew incessantly, bringing on a fever and sawing at her nerves. Despite the heat, she had closed the window to escape the wind, and the room was airless and dull. In front of her, propped across the chair arms, was a scrap of board that Imogene had begged of Fred, with a fresh white sheet of watercolor paper tacked onto it. Beside her, on the sill, were her colors. Before Imogene had left that morning, she had set the paints by Sarah and nestled the drawing board across her knees. “You watercolor beautifully,” she’d said. “You used to find such pleasure in it. You’d spend hours in the field behind the schoolhouse, lying on your stomach in the sun, painting wildflowers.”

Sarah had looked at the board and tiredness had claimed her. “I can’t paint anymore.”

“Please, Sarah,” Imogene had insisted. “It would do you good. One painting. Promise me. Paint a self-portrait. That’s bound to be pretty.”

And after a minute Sarah had promised. Now, hours later, the paper was still untouched. Wind rattled the pane in a sudden gust. As Sarah shifted in her chair, her paintbox was knocked from the sill and she looked at it for the first time since morning.

Just then footsteps sounded in the hall and knuckles rapped lightly on the door. “Sarah, are you there?” Lutie called. “I got something for you.” Sarah pushed the board away and struggled to her feet, to open the door. “Hope you weren’t sleeping.” Lutie used hushed tones whenever she talked with or about Sarah. “A letter came for you and I thought you’d like it right off.”

It was from Mam. Sarah tore it open before the door closed behind Lutie. Margaret’s characters, round and thick, sprawled across the page, allowing only four or five words to a line.

Dear Sarah ( & Imogene) ,

Your Pa’s going to take me into town today & I’ll get a chance to mail this. Things here at home are pretty much like always. A bit emptier maybe, I miss you & I miss Davie more now you’re gone too .

I know you’re wanting to hear news of the baby. He got sick, nothing to be scared by, and it did a good turn-Sam brought him here to stay. Gracie’s took to that baby like a cow to a calf. She takes care of him like he was her own. And he gets around some. His fat little legs are pumping all the time getting him into this or that. You’d think Gracie’d thin down with all the running after him she does but I think she’s going to be a big woman like her Mam. The other day he grabbed her around the knees & said “Mama? ”

There was more to the letter but Sarah didn’t read it. She read that last paragraph a second time. Then she stopped reading and rocked herself, Mam’s letter crumpled in one fist. Sarah set it carefully on the dresser and walked to the window.

Her toe struck the board to which her watercolor paper was tacked. Sarah snatched it up. “A self-portrait,” she said, and started to laugh.

It was after supper when Imogene came home. An untouched tray of food blocked the door outside the room. Imogene pushed it aside and went in.

On the windowsill a candle flickered in the draft, burning unevenly, a pillar of wax towering over the wick. Sheets of paper littered the floor. Pages hastily scrawled with paint, the water curling them into phantom leaves, were scattered over the bed and made piles on the chest of drawers. In the midst of this macabre scene was Sarah, bent over the parlor chair, her drawing board propped against the back. Her color box rested on the chair arm in a dark stain, with a cup of dirty water balanced precariously beside it.

Imogene lit the lamp. “Sarah?” Sarah looked over her shoulder at the sound and fixed Imogene with a blank stare, then turned back to her painting. In the lamplight her dress showed stains where the bodice and skirt had been used to wipe her brush. Lutie’s parlor chair was similarly streaked. Imogene watched Sarah for a moment, the little hairs on the back of her neck prickling with fear. She picked up one of the paintings from the floor, a picture done in purples and blacks. She held it to the light. It was a crude watercolor of a naked woman.

Imogene snatched up several more. All were depictions of women. Some were missing arms or legs or features. Most were nude.

Oblivious of everything, Sarah went on painting. Imogene quietly left the room and ran downstairs on tiptoe.

Everyone was gathered in the parlor, close to the fire. Lutie and Fred were engrossed in a game of checkers, and Evelynne, her party manners pitching her voice higher than usual and her thinning hair piled in a particularly intricate nest, was spinning her web for a distinguished-looking guest from San Francisco.

Imogene slipped by the open door unnoticed and, feeling her way through the darkened kitchen, lit the lamp on the pantry shelf. Back behind the applesauce she found the whiskey. Wrapping it carefully in a dishtowel, she hurried back up the stairs.

Sarah had finished another painting; she was trying to affix it to the mirror over the washstand with soap. The glass banged against the wall as she jabbed at it with the bar.

Imogene poured several inches of the whiskey into a tin cup. “Sarah?” She crossed the room and laid her hand on Sarah’s shoulder. The girl jerked convulsively, cracking the corner of the mirror.

“Sarah, put that down now, it’s time to stop.” She worked the soap bar out of Sarah’s hand. “Put the painting away,” she said gently. “We’re done with painting for today. I want you to drink this.” Imogene pressed the rim of the cup against Sarah’s lower lip. Most of the whiskey ran down her chin, but Imogene managed to get her to take a few mouthfuls.

“That’s the girl. We’re done with our work for today. Can you take a little more? Here, drink a little more.” Imogene spoke soothingly, pouring the whiskey down Sarah until nearly a quarter of the bottle was gone. The collar of Sarah’s dress was soaked and the room stank of whiskey, but at last the rigid muscles in the young woman’s face and back began to let go.

Imogene set aside the bottle and eased Sarah onto the bed. Sarah rolled her head on the pillow and smiled lopsidedly. “I been watercoloring.” Sudden tears drowned her eyes. “Don’t look,” she pleaded. “Promise me you won’t look. I think I’ve been crazy,” she confided. “I’ll be okay now. Don’t look.”

Imogene promised.

“A self-potrit,” her words were slurred. “Potrit-potrit-potrit.” She made a little song of it, wagging Imogene’s hand in time with the music.

“Gracie’s Matthew’s mamma now,” she murmured when she was near sleep. “Mam said.”

Imogene said nothing; the words came as nonsense to her, and she sat grim-faced and scared, her eyes never leaving Sarah’s face until the girl slept.

The wind buffeted the hotel, pawing at the eaves and setting the house to howling. Dry clouds raced across the sky, making ghostly shadows under a gibbous moon. Imogene spread the coverlet over Sarah and crossed to the window, taking the whiskey with her. With a chemist’s precision, she poured the cup one-quarter full and set the bottle on the sill. The ruined parlor chair still carried its share of Sarah’s artwork; pale legs and blood-black breasts leered obscenely in the silvery light. Imogene turned her back on it and, sipping her whiskey, watched the night. The dusty streets rolled away like white velvet, the trees silver and black. In the distance, a lone man leading a mule walked in from the sage. The desert hills behind him were stark and mottled in the moonlight.