What's Left of Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

curse.
    He doesn’t want to listen to the jumble of tiny sensations shooting from his eyes, his ears, his heart, his fingers, the sensations that transform themselves into warning signals, imminent prophecies that say, Nothing will ever be the same again.
    He doesn’t want to listen to any of it, and so he closes his mouth and his mind, and tries to pretend nothing has happened.
    ***
    She is here again, in the corner of the attic, quiet, alone, at peace. This is her real world now, the place she seeks out to live, to dream, to breathe, to suck in air that isn’t cloying with guilt and duty. The other, the moving through daily routines, chosen years ago, no, lifetimes ago, is nothing more than exercise, a warm-up for the real space of the night when she can slip out of bed and creep up the attic steps to her own world. There are more than just canvas and paints here: there is acceptance and solitude and freedom.
    Evie moves to the tiny window, slides back the sheer curtain and peers outside into the black night. There is a universe of possibilities beyond this place, cities and buildings and people who travel alone, who sleep in the nude, who chant or pray to a different God, who do not eat fresh-baked bread with each meal, who do not expect their spouses to paint pictures for the church bazaar, who do not shun friends who tell the truth.
    There is a world of possibilities out there and with each passing night, Evie wonders about it, imagines at first plunking herself into situations or circumstances, and then watching as though in a movie, as she maneuvers her way out or around or into an event. Lately, she’s been spending her nights captivated by these imaginings, each situation more compelling than the last, a vortex of sensation beckoning her forth, deeper, deeper. On these nights, the paint brushes lay dry and slack in their holders, the canvas empty, the paints unopened. The passion to pull her into another life is heavy and powerful and transforms itself into another medium: pen and paper.
    It starts the night Rupe slaps her and forbids her to see Brenda again. The apologies go on and on for weeks, the sad, pathetic embraces, the awkward gifts of candy and carnations, the phone calls in the middle of the day. But Evie is different now, hollowed out somehow, and no amount of wooing or sweet words can bring the old Evie back. Rupe thinks she needs time and stays on his side of the bed most nights, offering an occasional hand on her thigh to gauge her interest or let her know his, and sometimes she accepts out of loneliness, or need, or pity, hard to tell which, and sometimes, she just turns away, shuts him out, shuts herself out, shuts the world out.
    She finds one of Quinn’s old science notebooks tucked in a box in the corner of the attic and begins writing on the page next to his cramped symbols for the periodic table. The words come, flowing from anger over an unknown father, hate for a town that judges its own so harshly, love for a daughter’s sweet innocence, longing for a dead mother, desperation over a life that is suddenly unrecognizable. The emotions churn, pour themselves out on the pages, night after night until she’s filled the entire notebook and then another and yet another.
    She keeps the notebooks hidden in the bottom of an old oak chest Rupe has given her for storing extra canvas and the drawing books she uses with beginner students. No one will find them there, not that she’s deliberately hiding them, but in a way she is. There’s too much truth in these notebooks, truth that can hurt those she loves, force them to question what she’s written. What is this? Rupe will ask, his blue eyes pained, disbelieving. And why did you say you sometimes feel you don’t belong in Corville? Why, Evie? You’re one of us, don’t you know that? You belong here, here with us. With me. Don’t you know that?
    But Rupe is the one who doesn’t know.
    Baking apple pies for the church bazaar, even if they