He donated the old kitchen chair to Goodwill. The next weekend, he went back to Burris Trader and bought another chair. It became his hobby. He gave one of the paintings to his old Photoshop instructor, who was far more impressed with it than Shane had expected. He’d hung it in his office and suggested that Shane sell his works, maybe at the coffee shop near the campus. Shane thought it was a good idea, mainly because he had quickly run out of room for the paintings on his own walls. The manager of the coffee shop, a twenty-something girl with a nose ring and a half dozen short pony-tails jutting from her head at all angles, had agreed easily, especially since Shane insisted on selling them very cheaply.
“Cheap enough for college students,” he’d told her, smiling. “I don’t want them hanging around here gathering dust. If I’m going to sell them, I want them sold.”
They did sell. As they did, Shane painted more. The students that frequented the coffee shop called them Crazy Chairs, with that strange mixture of affection and sarcasm that seemed to be the hallmark of their generation. Shane didn’t mind, but he didn’t call them that himself. He didn’t really call them anything, but what he thought of them was just the opposite. He thought of the paintings as his Sanity Chairs series.
He supposed that didn’t have quite the same ring to it, though.
At night, Shane thought sometimes about Christiana. He thought about how much he missed her, and what their life together might have been like, had he done things just a little bit differently. He tried not to dwell on it, but in the long sleepless hours after the lights went off and the world shut off its distractions, it was hard not to. He sort of thought he owed it to her. It was his penance, maybe. It was just part of the view, the part he hadn’t been able to see until he’d stood right on the edge.
He thought about Stephanie, too. He thought about the daughter he’d never know, the one who had two different colored eyes, just like her mother. He wondered what her name was, and where she was, if she was with Stephanie. And he wondered if he’d ever find them, someday, when it was all over. He hoped so, but he couldn’t know for sure. For now, hope was good enough, even if, in those long nighttime hours, the hope felt tiny and flimsy, and reality felt hard and cold, more like a stone than a curtain, separating them from him, maybe forever.
The day after Shane went on his last bike ride along the river trail, he slept in late. It was Sunday, and he knew that Burris Trader wouldn’t open until eleven, if that. The owner, Henry Burris, was an old guy who kept fairly sporadic hours. Henry had asked Shane what in the world he bought all those chairs for, and Shane had told him about his paintings, even showing him one of his most recent examples, which had been in the back of the Saturn, on its way to the coffee shop. Henry had studied it critically, apparently unimpressed. From then on, however, Henry had taken it upon himself to point out any new chairs that came into his junk shop, even suggesting which ones he thought would make the best subjects for Shane’s “pitchers”.
“Got a new one in for ya,” Henry said when Shane entered the store that day, jingling the bell over the door. He stood up from the wooden chair behind the front counter, peering over his reading glasses and nodding toward the far corner of the crowded showroom. “Over there in the back, under the window. Came in with a whole truckload of salvaged junk from one of my dealers. Water damaged, I’d guess, based on the condition of the upholstery. I’ll give you a good deal on it. Go take a look.”
Shane went and took a look. As he approached the far end of the store, weaving through the precariously stacked antiques and shelves of forgotten miscellany, the musty showroom brightened. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, spearing through the big, dirty window and lightening the entire place, transforming it from a drab junk shop into a whimsical attic, packed with unknown treasures. The sunbeam landed on the chair, lighting it like a diamond in a jeweler’s display case. Shane stopped, blinking at it. It was upholstered in a dull embroidered fabric that had probably once been very colorful. The legs were wooden, crafted into tapering curves.
Shane approached it slowly. He recognized it, of course. He’d already painted it once. The only thing missing was the purse, sitting open on its cushion. He touched it, felt its threadbare upholstery. It smelled musty and old.
And then he turned, slowly, looking behind him, sweeping his gaze over the rest of the recent salvage. It was piled haphazardly, not quite ready for display. None of it had price tags on it yet. Shane stopped. His expression didn’t change. The truth was, he wasn’t really surprised at what he saw. He crossed the aisle, moving to the dark corner beneath the window.
The Riverhouse painting sat atop an old roll-top desk, leaning in the shadow of a pile of old shutters.
Shane approached it. It was frameless, filthy, bent out of true so that the canvas bulged slightly, loose in its struts. It looked far older than Shane knew it was. He squinted at it, and then reached to touch it. He felt the texture of the paint, ran his fingers gently over it, over the lower right corner, where Christiana’s shadow had once appeared. It wasn’t there now. The image looked exactly as he had originally painted it. Marlena sat on the portico, leaning back on one hand, her other raised to her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun. She looked like she was peering right out of the painting, right at the viewer. It was just a trick of perspective, however. She wasn’t looking at anything. She was only paint on canvas. Marlena was gone.
Shane raised his eyes, looking toward the top of the painting, and blinked in surprise. Penn Oliver’s note card was still there, pinned to the upper right corner. It had gotten wet and adhered itself to the canvas. It looked like an old receipt that had accidentally gone through the wash. He reached for it, tentatively, and plucked at it. It came away easily, leaving a lighter patch on the canvas beneath it.
He looked at in his hands. It had bent over onto itself, obscuring the handwriting. He unfolded it gently, careful not to tear it. He remembered what Penn Oliver had written, but for some reason he was curious. He had a suspicion, an inkling, and as he opened the note, he saw just what he expected. The handwriting was different now. Christiana was a lefty, after all. Her backward slanting cursive was immediately recognizable. Shane read it several times.
Her name is Amelia. After your mother.
Shane didn’t buy the painting, or the chair that had come with it. But he did keep the note. Henry Burris didn’t mind one bit.
The end