Roads by Sheryl
Amanda stared at the canvas in
front of her.
The idea had come to her this morning, in the kitchen, at the coffeepot, no less. Pouring
water into the back of the machine, she'd flashed back to filling a basin with warm water,
to repair a broken boy on her couch. Smiling, pausing in her task, she reflected on how
very much on her mind he'd been, since his departure. This boy had touched her in ways she
hadn't thought possible.
She'd finished making her coffee, and sat down at her table, mug in hand, thoughts
drifting with the steam. So many ghosts he'd stirred up, so many demons she'd thought
exorcised. It had been years since she'd thought about it all, and she hadn't let her mind
anywhere near Michael since his death. It wasn't a bad thing, she now thought, to be made
to look at those things.
The nightmare, and her attack on poor Taylor, had shown her that there were still
battles being fought, issues she needed to deal with. Pushing them down, obviously, given
the evidence of a boy's fright, and a stitched up hand, hadn't worked at all. She'd called
CC to talk to Taylor, maybe she should get together with him for herself. God knew it had
been ages since they'd really spent any time together. CC was good for her, he always had
been, even if being around him WAS like being hit by a freight train. Maybe, she'd thought
with a laugh, he could even tell her how to get Taylor the hell off her mind. He'd been in
there so much, her mind flashing on everything that had happened, from the time he'd
careened onto her front lawn, to the time he'd walked, subdued yet somehow almost serene,
out her front door.
Sighing, and getting up to refill her mug, she'd reflected on what appeared to be a
growing obsession. She just couldn't get the child out of her head. She'd laughed at her
next thought, that if she didn't find some way to express all of the emotions he'd
generated, she was likely to become a ravening Hanson fan.
Heading back to her chair, feeling a bit guilty that she was doing nothing but
woolgather, her eyes lit on her paintbox. Brows knit, an idea forming in the back of her
mind, she stared at it.
"Uh oh" she thought. "Inspiration is about to hit."
She knew the feeling. Her stubborn muse would never let her see an idea all at once, it
would come to her as she painted. The urge to paint now replacing everything else, she
plunked the mug ungraciously down on the table, and headed down the hall. God forbid she
should have to go buy a canvas, she was sure she had one left, and by God, she'd better.
Laughing at herself, the mental comment "You're so obsessive" flashing
through her mind, she triumphantly hauled out a last blank screen. Now, as she sat staring
at it, the seed of idea that had taken root began to grow.
"Okay." This time she spoke out loud. Talking to herself was a habit she
had no intention of breaking. "Here we go."
An observer would have perhaps been frightened at the intensity the girl, cross legged on
the floor, was displaying.
Eyes boring into her work, now flashing humor, now filling with tears, as memory
and emotion flowed from her soul onto the canvas, face reflecting a million conflictions.
Blond whisps escaped the headband, intended to keep them out of her eyes, going unnoticed
in her concentration.
She'd long since thrown down her brushes, working this one with her hands, and her
cheeks, nose and forehead were smeared with paint. Music pulsed around her, its energy
somehow her own, her thoughts flying onto the canvas with the flow of the music. Her hands
took on a life of their own, as her heart directed.
A million thoughts, all fighting for expression, she saw them in front of her. A
car, careening wildly down the road, and a frightened, violent child struggling for
escape. A burden, best left to someone else, a problem, a source of anger, her fist
connecting with a face already bruised from a mother's hands. A dark room, moonlight the
only illumination, and a boy's face as he listened to another's story... Flashes of blond
hair in headlights, catlike eyes filled with grief and anger. Winces of pain, and memories
of suppleness, a boy climbing over the back of the couch, grinning. A glimpse of the boy
who cared enough to take a chance on a girl with a knife, rather than run out the door.
The boy who pushed his brother out so a stranger wouldn't be frightened. She saw him
broken and bleeding and crying, tearing at the windows trying to get out. Then laughing,
holding his hand out, threatening to sit on her if she moved.
All these moments she saw and brought them out on the canvas. Time ceased to exist,
and the girl let her soul speak.
Hours later, Amanda sat back, leaning on her palms, eyeing her work. The incredible rush
of emotion had faded, everything transferred onto the canvas in front of her. Her eyes
roaved the unfinished painting.
She could slow down now, she could make it into what she wanted. No rushing, now.
She leaned back into her work, eyes calm now, quiet.
She smiled as her finger shaded his cheek bone. It was as if she were not touching
the canvas but comforting him again. There were no bruises on this face. Her apology for
having hit him. His face, without bruise or mark. Her eyes roamed the canvas again. She
could see him in there, everything he'd shown her, from the first time she saw him on the
lawn, to the last images of him with Isaac in the car. He looked so sad, yet at peace
somehow. Had that haunted serenity been imagined? She didn't think so. She'd shown him as
much as he'd shown her. Her fingers worked slowly, effortlessly, shading, defining, and
she saw the look she was trying to capture. Had it really been there? The look of someone
who's suddenly stepped away from the brink, who's seen the drop in front of them just in
time.
She thought it had. She loved the look, she'd never seen it in Michael, but she'd
seen it in Taylor. The look of calm in eyes that had been filled with desperation. No
longer scared or broken, a world that had been crashing down, suddenly diverted. She'd
seen it only briefly, but she loved it.
She paused at his hand and gave it a slight scrape of her thumb to lighten it. She
wondered how his hand was, if it still hurt. She wondered if she'd ever see him again,
this boy who'd somehow fastened himself to her heart. Would he make it? Sitting back,
gazing at the painting, close to complete, in front of her, her spirit suddenly felt
light. Her voice, now the only sound in the room, rang with faith. "He'll make
it."
********************
Well. He was gone, and Diana
felt guilty pleasure. God knew, she loved him, and while he'd been missing, the grief in
her had been overwhelming. But now, knowing he was safe, the respite was welcome. He
brought a tension into the house. Sighing, sipping her coffee, she listened to the
silence. The kids, for once, seemed to know to leave her to her reflections.
CC'd had so much to say to them, so many suggestions... He'd been heaven sent, he
had to have been. Just his ability to get Taylor to respond was amazing. If she'd been the
only one, this morning, telling the boy to get up and go, she'd have argued herself blue,
and chances are he'd still be lying on the floor in three day old clothes. For whatever
reason, he responded to CC.
"Maybe," she thought smiling, "it's self defense. CC
certainly is overpowering. He probably feels he has to do what he says, or just be mowed
over." Thinking back to the night CC had spent with them, her brow furrowed.
There was still something bothering her. Her mind drifted back.
CC and Taylor, alone finally, in the kitchen, their voices filtering, muffled and faint,
into the living room. Hearing Taylor's tone pick up in intensity, and feeling not the
least bit guilty, Diana had quietly moved to the doorway, listening. What had followed was
an exercise if frustration.
"Yeah, but CC, she's not okay! That's not okay, that stuff happening."
"Taylor, she is. It's not something new for her. She's fine. She still feels bad
about it though, she wants to talk to your mom"
"I know, but she doesn't have to."
"Responsibility, Taylor."
"Right. She had no idea she was doing it. No harms done. There's no reason..."
Just as she felt on the verge of understanding what they were talking about, Isaac spoke
from behind her. "What are you doing?"
Diana had jumped, yelped, then frantically listened to make sure she hadn't been
heard. She smiled as she remembered scrambling to come up with an excuse as to why she was
standing in the hallway outside of the kitchen, ear pressed to the door. Isaac didn't even
wait for an excuse, he knew he caught her and that was it. Waving away her excuses with a
grin, he'd shoved her back into the living room.
"Damn him, when did he get so smart?" she thought. It had amused
him terribly, and she'd gone back to sit on the couch, feeling more than a little
sheepish, and extremely frustrated.
Now, that frustration returned. Something had happened between her son, and that girl. She
didn't know what, but something, and it bothered her. She'd seen that the girl had been
crying, that day in the house. CC had refused to let her into he kitchen, where Taylor,
the girl, Amanda, and another boy had been, and Taylor had bodily thrown Isaac from the
room, but she'd caught a glimpse of blond hair, and tears. Something had been going on.
She'd seen blood on the floor, and on the kitchen doorjamb, and Taylor's voice had had a
hysterical note she hadn't much cared for. Still, just hearing his voice had been the
biggest relief of her life. Yes, he'd been yelling, but he was alive. A very short time
later he'd been in the van with her, on his way home, and she'd been given several
suggestions and promises. Things were okay, or as okay as could be expected, but still,
that nagging suspicion that something important had happened, something that was being
hidden from her, still lingered.
Sighing, feeling a bit disgruntled, and thinking it was much too quiet, suddenly, she got
up to check on her brood. This much silence was never to be trusted.
She knew Isaac was napping, he'd complained of a headache earlier, and was sleeping
off the painkiller he'd taken. The rest, though, could only be up to no good.
As she started up the stairs, she was rewarded with a loud crash...
Nodding, "I knew it was too good to last." she headed for the
source...
Isaac too had heard the crash... In fact, he was the crash... He had tried getting out of
bed while still a little groggy, not noticing his foot, tangled in the bedsheet... The
tumble from his bunk, to the floor, had been a long one, and for a second he thought he'd
gone right through the floor.
He was laughing hysterically, hopping on one foot trying to disentangle himself,
when Diana finally made it up the stairs. She was about to turn the corner into the boys'
room when Mackenzie popped his head out of his room.
"It wasn't me. I didn't do it."
Nodding, seeing her eldest son in the predicament he was in, she laughed. "I
see that, Mackie." She turned into Isaac's room, making a fortuitous grab, just as he
finally lost his battle with the sheet, saving him from a nasty collision with the bottom
of the top bunk. "Isaac, for heaven sake." She was smiling. "How do you
manage these things? You didn't hurt yourself did you?" He was nearly laughing too
hard to answer her. Holding her shoulder while he untied his feet, he managed to gasp out,
"No, no, I'm fine. Humiliated, but fine."
He grinned at her now, finally managing to stand upright. "I think the bed
won, though."
Diana was happy to hear him laughing. A few days ago, he would have been cursing
and yelling about this.
Mackenzie's voice suddenly piped up from the doorway. "Told you it wasn't me."
She turned to speak to him, and found herself face to face with Isaac's shoulder.
"You know," she remarked, standing on tiptoe in a futile attempt to see
past him. "It would be easier to yell at him if you weren't so damn tall."
Snickering, he stepped aside, just in time to see Mackie run, giggling, back down
the hall. "Ah, well, sorry mom, he got away."
He headed past her, down the stairs, and she trailed him, feeling good. There was
hope in her today, that things would finally work out.
There was laughter in the house again, and it was good.
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