Janey’s Paintings

Janey looked over her shoulder at the beautiful young man that stood in the doorway. Just last year, he had been an awkward kid with acne and a crackly voice, but now her older brother was a youthful masterpiece. Janey admired him from a few feet away, taking in the gentle stubble on his chin and the curve of his jawline. He was frowning, but then again, Janey hadn’t seen his smile in months. His eyelashes strayed chaotically from his almond eyes, getting tangled in the slight waves of his blond hair, and the light always seemed to hit him perfectly.

“Whatcha staring at?” he asked her with curious brown eyes.

“Nothing, Teddy. Just looking.”

A sudden burst of inelegant thunking rang down the metal basement stairs, announcing their mother’s presence on her daily laundry run. A large green basket towering with sheets threatened to spill over in her arms.

“Janey, honey, what are you doing watching the wall?” Her mother looked concerned, but Janey didn’t understand. Turning to face her mother she asserted “Momma, Teddy’s here. Didn’t you see him come home? He’s rig-” She looked behind her at the wall. The handsome young man was nowhere to be seen.

After that, her mom put her into a psych ward. Janey knew her mom wouldn’t be able to afford it, so she couldn’t understand what madness had overtaken the woman. The nurses kept telling her that Teddy was gone, that he had taken his life. Janey just smiled at them. “They must be confused,” she thought, “Teddy is the sweetest thing. He couldn’t kill a squeeter if it landed on him. Besides, I saw him come home, and he’s waiting for me.”

Every day became a mix of pills, group talks, and coloring pages. Janey figured that the other kids must be here on accident too, but despite their lugubrious tendencies, they all acted like this was their new home. From time to time, someone would cry and cry and cry for their mommas, and the nurses would hold them for a while, but most kids just went about their day.

Janey knew she was nothing like the rest, so she planned her escape constantly. The windows were latched, so that plan ended quickly. She tried getting her mom to take her home, but every time she came to visit, her momma teared up and left within minutes. Finally, she begged the first nurse she found, Nurse Mary, to let her leave.

“Suga, I have a surprise for you. Why don’t you come down to the rec room with me.”

Nurse Mary brought Janey down by the windows and gave her a small white canvas. “Miss Janey, can you show me what Teddy looks like? I wanna have a face to match the sweet brother you’re always telling me about.”

Janey thought the request was simple enough. It took her a few hours, and Nurse Mary sat with her the whole time, but eventually a handsome face with curious brown eyes looked at the odd pair. The old southern nurse came up close to the canvas, awe in her eyes.

“So this is Teddy.”

Janey nodded and smiled. “Yes, Nurse Mary.”

“Would you like to do another one?”

Janey’s daily routine quickly expanded to include two hours of painting. In a week, she had ten full canvases of Teddy engaging in everyday activities. Documenting her brother’s life became Janey’s bailiwick. One Tuesday afternoon, she sat back in a chair to examine her handiwork, and noticed something strange, her brow twisted in barely veiled frustration. Moving with purpose, Janey arranged all her canvases in chronological order and began to compare them. The painting she had done with Nurse Mary was a near spitting image of Teddy, with his honey blond hair and olive skin tone. The one she had done earlier that day was also a near spitting image of Teddy, with his mud blond hair and green eyes. Janey couldn’t decide which picture looked more like her brother, but they were both so different.

Doubt began to set in as Janey anxiously compared the two Teddys. She gripped them so hard that her thumbs pierced the fabric and she broke down crying on the floor. Nurse Mary rushed over to Janey who had become a heap of glowering lassitude. “Suga, what’s wrong?” Janey was silent and unmoving.

For three days, Janey sat in bed, looking solemnly off into the distance and saying nothing. No one could get her to eat or drink, and the nurses were forced to hook her up to an IV. Four days after the incident, Nurse Mary came in to switch out the saline bag and she left a cookie on Janey’s bed, daring her to eat. Just as the southern woman moved to leave, Janey uttered in her dry, broken voice “He’s gone.”

It took a few weeks, but the once hopeful girl began to paint again. This time, however, Teddy was no longer the focal point; every single painting was of Janey. Teddy was no longer able to be the center of her world, and her mother didn’t have the means to provide for her dreams, so Janey escaped through her art. She loved to sit back and admire her work from a few feet away, taking in the freckles on her chin and the curve of her jawline. Janey loved the way her eyelashes strayed chaotically from her almond eyes, getting tangled in the slight waves of her blond hair, the way the light hit her perfectly in every picture. In herself, she could see her brother.

In her work, she always left an ex-voto, almost as if daring Teddy to come find it. Sometimes she was dancing, sometimes she was standing in some exotic location, but most of the time she was just sitting in her room at home, and if you were to look closely at the most detailed renditions, you would see a faint, Teddy shaped outline in her bedroom mirror. Only, in her paintings, he was smiling.