I am working diligently on tax forms for 2012 this morning when Caleb appears beside me. With a goofy smile he slides a small box in front of me. It is wrapped professionally.
I had one more gift for you, which I'm afraid was lost in the shuffle or the haze of the pain from the headaches over the holidays. I discovered it this morning.
You don't have to-
Just open it, Bridget. Please. It's only small, but it's something you will love.
It's a mink key ring. A little round ball of fur with a clip. I smile and stroke it across my cheek and then his. So soft.
Do you remember the Danish mink blanket I gave you and Cole when you got married? What happened to it anyway?
He burned it.
Caleb's eyes go from pleased to saddened in a blink and I'm sorry I didn't censor myself but I seem to always speak first and think later.
***
Cole is listening to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and painting tonight. It's pouring outside but he has opened all the windows and put a fire on. He's in his customary darkest-blue paint-flecked jeans (that match his eyes so closely it's frightening) and nothing else, it's his painting uniform. The black leather cord with the German cross dangles against his chest and he grins at me through his dark brown curls as he tips my glass up to his lips, finishing the rest of the whiskey that I left because it burns too much.
Take off your shirt, he instructs.
It's freezing and it's the only thing I have on.
Wrap that around yourself. He indicates the mink blanket from the daybed. It was one of the gifts his brother bought for us for our wedding. I didn't have the heart to tell Cole that Caleb bought it because of a room we stayed in in Vegas that had a fur-covered bed that I couldn't bring myself to leave. Sleeping naked in fur should be on everyone's life list if it isn't already. I'm not sure if Cole would be actually be upset however, since he was the one who made me go on the trip in the first place.
I unbutton my shirt slowly. I don't want to model anymore. I just want to sleep. I don't know why he doesn't know me by heart enough to paint without me having to sit here for hours, days on end while he spirals down into the darkness that is his gift. I don't know if it's worth it. Who in the hell is going to buy paintings of a girl they aren't in love with?
He pours another glass of whiskey for himself and comes over to me, ripping the shirt apart and sliding it off my shoulders. He pulls the mink blanket around me and gathers it in front, pulling my hair back so my face tilts up toward his for a kiss. His mouth burns too. He holds his glass up to my lips but I try and turn my head away. He turns it back and gazes into my eyes for what seems like an eternity before letting go and taking the glass back to the easel.
Sit on the floor, Bridget. By the fire. Warm up there.
I do as I'm told. I sit for hours. Excruciating execution. At three in the morning he cleans his hands and comes over to me, pulling me to my feet. He's tipped past his breaking point. He's frustrated and I'm going to bear the brunt of his creative block or whatever is wrong now.
WHY are you like this? He roars at me, ripping the blanket off and throwing it into the fire.
Like what? I'm terrified and tired and confused.
So fragile. I can't paint fragile. This portrait isn't you. I don't know who it is. But I can't get this right. Why can't you be stronger?
He turns around and storms out of the room and I look down in time to see smoke pouring off the blanket from where it landed inside the grate, underneath the mesh screen, and is now singeing around the edges, melting. I drag it away, onto the hearth and smother it up into a ball. It's ruined.
I put more wood on the fire and close the windows. I twist the caps back onto the whiskey and the paints that Cole missed in his anger. By the time I'm finished cleaning up the room is warm and I can't stay awake any longer. I fetch the ruined blanket from the floor and lie down on the daybed, pulling the blanket over me, ashes and all. I'm asleep in seconds and in my dreams Cole is burning, having tried to throw me in the fire when his hands were still stinging from the paint thinner he used to clean up with. I could not be held by him though, I disintegrated when he touched me and he burned instead.
He would spend the rest of his life capturing the fragility he saw in me. Through paintings, in photographs, in his minds eye. In his heart that finally broke from the effort. He sold his soul to his brother and figured it out and his creative world exploded into accolades and recognition for something I thought was so very ordinary.
Me.
Caleb (by purchasing his soul) and then Batman (facilitating exposure to the right people) made Cole famous.
I just drove him mad.
