Page 46 of The Singing Trees
Chapter 15
A STRAITJACKET
How do you leave someone who might need you now more than ever? And how do you leave someone that you love so much that it hurts? Those were the questions that plagued Annalisa in the days following Emma’s suicide attempt. Nino was the one who ended up giving Annalisa a ride back to Payton Mills that day. She was so shaken up that she barely spoke to him or to Nonna before rushing to her bedroom and climbing under the covers.
For days she cried, feeling like any progress she’d made in the two years since losing her parents was lost. It was as if all the pain she’d felt watching her father scream at her mother and all the sadness she’d felt at her parents’ funeral had been dug up and dangled in her face. To think that all she’d done was love someone, and that she’d even tried to help a girl who was going through similar circumstances.
As she went yet another day without eating, without painting, her love for Thomas scraped her hollow insides. Nonna was so kind to her, bringing her food, letting her skip school, knowing she was in tremendous pain.
Other than going to the bathroom, the only time she left her room was to watch the coverage of the Kent State shootings, which seemed to prove how devastatingly awful life could be. Nixon was still breaking his promises, sending more men to die, now even pushing into Cambodia.Kids Annalisa’s age had tried to stand up for what they believed in, which was a right of every American—or at least so they thought. The National Guard had shot them down in cold blood, just like the FBI had shot the Black Panther Fred Hampton.
Why should Annalisa ever get out of bed?
Annalisa had spoken by phone with Thomas a few times. Emma was okay now, safely back at home. Thomas wanted to come see her, but Annalisa told him she wasn’t ready yet. She knew he needed her, but she couldn’t be there for him.
At night, she could still see Mr.Barnes’s eyes glaring at her, his tongue spitting angry words, thrashing her. When she’d finally told Nonna what had happened, her grandmother rolled out a long string of Italian curses, praying that God would deliver vengeance.
After a week of missed school, Nonna gave her a stern talking to, telling her that she had to get back to her life. “All you’ve talked about is graduating, and here you are, weeks away, and you’re hiding. You can’t keep lying in bed all day.”
“Why not, Nonna? What’s the point?” When she said that, she remembered Emma saying the same thing. Oh God, was she on the same path, one of hopelessness and despair? She thought about the poisonous bite of love. Who could blame Emma for shutting down and choosing the easy way out?
When she asked Nonna that question, she responded, “The point is that God will help lift you up, but you have to take the first step.”
Annalisa pulled the covers up higher. “And what would that be?”
“You have to get out of bed.” As if it were that easy.
It took a few hours for Nonna’s advice to settle in, but Annalisa knew she was right. She’d spent so many days staring at her work space, the paints and brushes, wondering what it would feel like to get a brush into her hands, wondering if painting could be the salvation she needed.
Annalisa finally climbed out of bed and knelt. With steepled hands, she said a long prayer, asking God for direction. Nonna was right; shecouldn’t keep lying in bed. As she pressed up, she turned back to her easel. She had no idea what she would paint, but she knew she had to do something. It was the only way. Though she’d been painting outside all of April, she wasn’t ready to be sprayed down by sunshine—or hear the song of her and her mother’s wind chimes.
With what felt like great courage, she sat and faced the blank paper clipped to the easel. She stared inside, wishing she could jump into it, wishing she could start over. Finally finding the urge, she chose a forest green and a jet-black and squeezed them onto her palette. Taking her large flat brush, she dipped the bristles into her colors, working them into a deep dark green that felt like greed.
Satisfied with her color, she gathered a generous portion and took it to the canvas. She had no idea what she would paint, but that was okay. Like getting out of bed, she had to take the step of putting paint on paper. Not having done a color wash, she put a long stroke of this dark green across the white. She wished that had been a moment of awakening, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like a waste of paint, a mindless swipe at the enemy.
She painted another stroke and then another, feeling like a ship with plenty of wind in her sails but no compass on the deck. A pang of sadness hit her so hard that she swung her brush at it, spraying dark paint across the paper and rug. Her throat tightened as if she were being strangled, and she swung the brush again and again, a mad Jackson Pollock splattering her entire room.
A primal urge came over her, and she screamed like a wild animal, letting everything bottled up inside rush out of her, both through her mouth and off her brush. This wasn’t art, though, and she wasn’t making some kind of breakthrough. She wasn’t finding her voice with abstraction. What she was doing was losing her mind.
She threw the brush, and it spun like a knife across the room, splattering the covers of the bed and ceiling. With bright-red rage burning her skin, she reached for the easel and flung it to the ground. Then sheswatted at the items on her desk, sending her palette with that putrid green and the other paints and the jars of brushes to the ground, all one big crash that signified exactly how she felt inside.
Nonna burst into the room. “What in God’s name?”
Annalisa looked at her like she’d just broken out of a straitjacket. Annalisa had no reply, but she knew she’d found her answer. Without any shadow of a doubt, art and love could not coexist.
“You’re breaking up with me?” Thomas asked, caught off guard. They were walking along the sidewalk in her neighborhood the next day. He’d tried to hold her hand, but she’d sheathed hers in the pocket of her red gauchos.
Having escaped mud season, they’d welcomed spring. The grass of each tiny lawn had sprung up in brilliant green. Gardens showed sprouts of life. Though her heart was ripped out, a part of Annalisa Mancuso was right there with them, a flower finally coming to bloom, perhaps a flower growing out of ashes.
“Yes,” she replied, looking at him like he was a casualty of war. Not the war of Vietnam, no. He was a casualty of the war of love, as so many young couples were. And he was a casualty of the war of art, because she’d been forced to make a decision. Whenever she doubted herself, she thought of Sharon Maxwell. Sharon was in her position today because of an unwavering devotion to her craft.
There was that word:devotion. Thomas was no doubt devoted to her, and in almost all ways, Annalisa to him. In fact, she was so devoted to him that she was setting him free because of it, saving his life from getting worse. A few weeks or months later, he’d move on and be glad they’d parted.
Seeing him hurt, though, was agony defined. What did he think Annalisa was going to say when she’d finally called?Oh, what have Ibeen up to? Just painting and studying, and ... you know, hanging out ... the thing with Emma and then your dad screaming at me? No biggie. You and your dad slugging each other? Hadn’t thought another second about it. Everything’s great. You about ready to leave for Portland?
It had been two weeks since Emma’s suicide attempt, and she was as sure as ever that she loved Thomas—and Emma—enough to put them first. Ending her relationship with Thomas was excruciating, but it was the right choice, the best move for all three of them. She kept telling herself that if you love someone, you must set them free.
From a selfish point of view, Annalisa hadn’t painted one single stroke since having her breakdown. So not only was she getting in the way of Thomas’s family, but her love for him had stifled her art.
