Chapter One
âDites moi qui vous aimez, et je vous dirai qui vous etes.â (Tell me whom you love and Iâll tell you who you are) âFrench Creole Proverb
I painted.
I also walked and talked and occasionally ate pudding. But, mostly, I painted. Everything else was superfluous. Walking, talking, eating, breathingâ¦
Paint mattered more than being ambulatory or loquacious or full of pudding. Of course, I had to breathe to live and therefore paint so I suppose breathing mattered, too.
But, mostly, the midnight colors of red, black and purple mattered. And blue. Oh, that particular elusive shade of blue so hard to capture even with the most careful blending of oils on paper.
Yes. The blue of his eyes mattered most of all.
âNot hungry today, dear? Not even for Tapioca?â
Talking, talking, there isnât time for talking.
I carefully swirled blue-tipped fingers on the canvas that held my full attention. Urgency caused my chest to tighten and my head to hurt, but I wasnât a fool. The nurse picked up the neglected tray that had sat on a nearby table all morning. Iâd have to stop and eat the next food that was brought to me. Not only because Iâd be light-headed by then but also because, if you didnât eat something once or twice a day, paint and canvas would disappear.
I would eat when I finished his eyes. They were the trickiest aspect of the stranger to recreate because they were always changing. I could never capture the expression though Iâd seen it in my nightmare thousands of times.
It was the change I tried to paint, a simple shifting of dark to light.
Iâd never gotten it right
âAlways the same, love. A handsome devil for sure, but why the same man over and over and over again?â
The nurse was new. I didnât throw a handful of paint at her or scream my frustration or try to knock the hours old pudding from her hands. It wasnât right to strike out when someone âmeant well.â Iâd been told that in the beginning. A lot. It was something I already knew, but Iâd forgotten just as Iâd forgotten so many things.
I would never be able to remember if I had to talk at the same time but I was also afraid of losing my paint if I didnât try.
âHe watches over meâ¦I think. I see him in my dreams.â
I dropped my hands to my lap not even noticing the smears of cerulean left there on an old smock from hundreds of just such moments before.
The eyes were finished, but they were wrong. They were too dark and angry, almost frightening. Goosebumps rose on the back of my neck as I looked into the wrong eyes for the hundredth time.
âA guardian, you say? Like an angel?â The nurseâher name was Emma, or Hannah, or Annaâwalked around the room from painting to painting. Names didnât matter. I was terrified if I learned new names Iâd lose the beloved ones I couldnât recall because they hovered on the edge of my consciousness like echoes of a yesterday that never was. Canvases were hung and propped and stacked everywhere and these had caught her attention. âButâ¦no wings?â
The nurse had turned back to me as the not-quite-right shade of blue dried on my fingers.
âHeâs not an angel,â I corrected. As always, I felt slightly defeated but also relieved to have failed. If I didnât get the eyes right then maybe such an intimidating creature didnât exist.
In spite of the relief, Iâd be driven to try again and again.
For some reason, I had to get it right. An obsessive loop my doctors called it. There was so much my doctors didnât understand. I might have forgotten who I was before I came to St. Maryâs, but the sense of urgency I hadâto remember this one manâwas a life line to my lost memories I couldnât release.
âNot an angel?â The nurse repeated thoughtfully running a finger down the handsome cheek of the man I had painted hundreds of times since Iâd been brought to the clinic a year before.
âNot at all,â I whispered, shivering as I looked into the wrong eyes.
***
I didnât have much to bring with me to Belle Aimée. When the ivy-covered wrought iron that surrounded the old house loomed large in front of me, my possessions seemed even more meager. The ghostly white Greek revival style âcottageâ sat with silent prominence behind the elaborate iron gate on the very edge of the Lower Garden District. It was a mansion by todayâs standards. I had only a creaky old steamer trunk filled with carefully rolled canvases, a much more modern suitcase on wobbly wheels packed with the simple clothing Iâd needed at St. Maryâs and a shoulder bag with a few personal items that meant nothing to me. I didnât remember why I carried the silver-handled hairbrush or the faded lavender ribbon or the book of French fairytales, worn and obviously well-read.
I only knew it was late and I hadnât painted all day.
The hollow ache in my stomach, the nerves skittering along my spine as I looked up at the glow of windows shuttered against the night, mattered much less than my clean fingers and my restless need to find the man I tried so hard to recall.