PORTRAIT OF HER

It is all happening now. It is faded like a memory, but for me, it is all in the present. For me there is no past or future, only the now. My condition is hard to grasp, but I am attempting to understand.

I am drawing short breaths. They are my last. I am drawing long breaths. They are my first.

My life and hers are simultaneous. I am adding two white specks to her eyes and she comes alive. She draws long breaths. Her eyes are sparkling. I am grasping for her name, but I cannot remember. She helps me find the past, but I lose the present. Her breaths are short and so are mine. It all happens at once.

I am grasping for what I cannot hold. She is standing over me, the only sparkle in her eyes is the glisten of tears. She is kneeling beside me. She is asking again, but I cannot answer. I am grasping for her name, but I cannot remember, I do not know who she is.

Her name is Katie. She is my daughter. She is a baby, she is a child, she is a woman. She is dying in front of me. Short breaths, grasping for air she cannot hold. Her eyes are sparkling as she stretches up to give me the picture of us that she drew. I am framing the picture and hanging it up in my office. I am doing this so that when I see it, I will think of her.

I am a child and old Norton is showing me statues. Their eyes are dull, glossed over with white. He explains that they used to be painted bright colours and when the eyes were painted, they were alive, but now the paint has washed away and the eyes are dull. My painting is not finished yet. Her eyes are dull. Norton is explaining that life is in the eyes. I am adding two white specks to her eyes and my painting comes alive. Her eyes are sparkling.

Reams of timetables and budgets are sitting on my lap, Katie is drawing beside me, our dog Wassily between us. Katie is showing me the finished drawing. She is explaining that Wassily can wear the helmet she has designed and be able to talk. I am at my first exhibition, no one has come. I am telling Katie that she should make her helmet, she shouldn’t give up.

The room is warm. A woman who says she is my daughter is showing me pictures I am not in. She is holding up a picture of our dog Wassily. I am remembering Wassily. I am remembering Katie. I am in a cool white room. The doctor is explaining that my disease is getting worse. The doctor is talking more to Katie than she is to me. She explains that Alzheimer’s can lead to dementia, which could lead to my death. There is no cure. I don’t tell Katie that I am afraid.

Old Norton’s face is staring at me. I am trying to capture what I remember of the man. I am a young woman with paint in my hair. I am adding two white dots to his eyes and he comes alive. The portrait is not him, but it implies him. Dozens of faces are staring at me. With each face I paint, I become more adept at encapsulating these people, their lives, their essence. I am interviewing for a part-time job in a gallery. I am staring at those great paintings, their subjects long forgotten. I am daydreaming of when my portraits hang alongside them. I am in my empty exhibition; my poor imitations of faces feel dull and lifeless. I am being offered a promotion that will leave no time for my own work. I am saying yes. My paintings are in a trunk in my attic, their subjects long forgotten.

Clutching a crumpled letter, Katie is asking me if she should take the job that will leave her no time for her own work. I am smiling, I am saying no, I am saying she shouldn’t give up. Katie is releasing her first product, an implant that can map a person’s mind. She is telling me she is calling it ‘portrait’, for me. Her eyes are sparkling.

I am framing Katie’s drawing of us and hanging it in my office in the gallery. Her work hangs alongside those great paintings. I am smiling, when I see it, I will think of her. The drawing is hanging in my house. I am an old woman. I am looking at the drawing Katie drew and I do not know who drew it. I am searching for the memory but it is lost. I am in my home, but I am lost. I am with my friends and family, but I am alone. I am reaching for the thoughts but they are gone and I cannot hold them.

Katie is tired, I have upset her because I am forgetting more and more. I am telling her I am afraid. She is apologising. She is thinking. Her eyes are sparkling. She says she can help. I am being scanned. I am being interviewed. I am being studied. I am being sedated for surgery. I am waking up. I am touching the back of my neck, feeling a small bump where one of Katie’s portraits lies. Katie is smiling, asking how I feel, if I recognise her. I am reaching out for the name and I am finally holding it. My memories are flooding back to me. I am remembering Wassily, old Norton and all the faces in the gallery. I am reaching to remember and Katie’s portrait device is feeding me the feeling. She is helping me find my past.

I am drawing short breaths. The sheets are too clean. My life is returning to me. I am exercising. I am painting. The portrait device is powerful, my memories are clearer than they were before my mind deteriorated. I am painting one person, but I am remembering every face I ever painted, every subject that ever sat for me. I am painting everyone I ever knew at the same time. I am staring at a marble-eyed statue. I am studying the creases in the face of the gallery owner. I am holding Katie in my arms for the first time, I’m telling her I’ll never let go of this moment.

I am holding tight. Too tight. I can hold my memories, but little else. I reach out for the present, but I cannot grasp it. What is happening right now? Am I that child in school who is learning to draw or am I the older mother, teaching my child to draw? Am I the old woman, lying in bed, drawing her final short breaths or am I stood beside the bed watching that old woman? I am agreeing to Katie’s procedure. Katie is helping me find the past. Katie is helping me lose the present.

Katie is staring at me. I am lost in my memories. She is stretching up to show me what she has drawn. Katie is saying that I am lost again, that I don’t know my own daughter, but I do know her. Her name is Katie. She is my daughter. She is a baby, she is a child, she is an old woman. There are complications following a car accident. I am there beside her. The sheets are too clean. She is taking short breaths, grasping for air she cannot hold. Her eyes are sparkling as she pleads for one more story before bed. I am reading her just one more.

I am drawing long breaths, my first breaths. I am being embraced. A distant feeling. I am holding her. The sheets are too clean. I am drawing short breaths, grasping for what I cannot hold. Just a moment longer with my memories. A soft static is rising through my body, behind it there is no feeling. It is rising to my mind. It is cool and lifting, but it is dark. I am seeing her whole life; it all happens at once. She is still here. Her life is encapsulated in my mind, in my memories. The portrait of me is a portrait of her. My eyes are sparkling before the paint is washed away.

ANAX

[Fragment long-longlisted for the Bricklane Bookshop Short Story Prize]