Free The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland Page B

with him, as she always had, she’d refused. She turned silent and grumpy for weeks until Mother demanded to know why.
    â€œHe sits in church like some holy man. Why should he act as if he’s God, because he’s not, Mother. He’s not,” she’d said. She was too shocked and embarrassed to tell her why.
    â€œYou’re a spoiled black crow, Emily. Pecking at him like a crow,” Mother had said, the words coming in shallow, tubercular breaths.
    â€œHe’s not.” Whispered this time, because she knew the repetition was unnecessary.
    Mother’s hurt expression softened, as if she felt a double embarrassment that Emily knew that Father wasn’t God, and that she, his wife, had known it all along, yet lived as though he were. Mother had seen judgment in her eyes for what she saw, and hadn’t countered her. Right then, she’d said to herself that she, Emily Carr, would never live that way with any man. Never live in a house that pretended piety and concealed indecency. Would rather live in a teepee or a burned-out tree trunk than such a house. She’d screamed it to herself. They had stood like statues, face to face, two identical pairs of gray eyes looking at each other, both of them knowing that Mother was a woman in a way that she, Emily, would never be. Two women, both of them waiting for the other to speak, and neither did.
    Would going with Claude mean a life like that? Going where he wanted to go, when he wanted, for his trade, regardless of what she wanted to paint? Still, it would be better than being stuck here only imagining love and all the rest.
    Her pulse beat with urgency as the rain beat on the window. She waited for either one to let up. Neither one did. What would he do if she came back in this downpour? He’d have to take her into the tent. He’d see that she couldn’t be deterred by mere rain, that she was an able woman to travel north.
    She was stronger than Mother. She could still be herself, do what she hungered for. She would not be a shrinking violet, or a servant. Une dame courageuse. She heard the drums within her. She was ready, mind and body. She placed two dots of lavender toilet water on herthroat, another between her breasts, and set out for the cove, in her cape, with an umbrella.
    â€¢ • •
    La Renarde Rouge was gone. The skiff was gone. The tent was gone. The fire pit only wet ashes. The sea pocked and gray. The empty cove humiliated her. Wind knifed through her flesh to her womb.
    She had come so far. He didn’t know what she’d had to wade through to stand here, ready. He’d lost patience. She would shrivel. She was sure she would dry up and shrivel.
    She slogged home dragging her umbrella, plodding through puddles, every splash reinforcing a promise to herself—no one would ever get her to reveal the sorry spectacle she was.
    Billy was waiting for her inside the door. She passed him by without so much as a touch. She kicked off her shoes, stepped out of her dress, and crawled under her quilt. Billy put his chin on her pillow. His liquid eyes six inches from hers told her he was sorry. She reached out to rest her hand on his neck.
    No, she wouldn’t shrivel. But nothing, not his name or the sound of his words, could she allow to remind her of him. She got out of bed, tore up one of the cove sketches, lit the oil burner.
    She stopped. Ridiculous to give up good work in the heat of the moment. Now that was immature. She tossed the rest onto a pile and flopped on the bed again.
    â€œCome on, Billy. Come on up.”

8: Spruce
    When Jessica came to the studio to collect her daughters after class on Saturday, a line of girls marched out the door, grabbing a cookie and singing.
Em’ly is an old maid.
    All her clothes are homemade.
    She’s getting plump and dumpy.
    All her shoes are clumpy,
    But she’s NEVER grumpy!
    â€œWhy, that’s horrible!” Jessica said. “Who made that