Page 79 of None Of Your Business

He points at me. “You.”

I stare at his finger.

“I can see your observations everywhere. I can feel your sympathy for them. Your fascination with the things we do to one another when we love badly, or quietly, or for too long, yet you’re standing outside all of it.”

The observation room flashes through my mind.

The glass and semicircle of chairs.

Everybody else talking while I draw.

“If this is the entire exhibition,” he continues, “then you’ve given me an extraordinarily beautiful record of everybody else’s pain.” His eyes come back to mine. “You haven’t given me yours.”

I say nothing because what the hell am I supposed to say to that?

“You’ve spent years painting around yourself.”

My hands curl deeper into my pockets. “You’re just making this up because you want another painting.”

“I always want another painting.”

That gets nothing from me.

“You know what I see when I look at these?”

“Apparently everybody’s trauma except mine.”

“I see an artist who understands what it is to sit inside a room full of people and make sure nobody notices what she’s carrying.”

He knows last year was difficult. He knows I stopped producing work. He knows I canceled.

But he doesn’t know why.

“I see grief,” he says. “Want. Shame. Fear. You understand all of it, but you’ve made it safe by giving it to somebody else.”

I look at the third canvas.

Everybody else’s hands.

None of mine.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to decide whether you’re satisfied with a very good exhibition.”

“And if I’m not?”

His gaze shifts toward the large blank wall at the end of the gallery. “If you want people talking about this show a year from now, give me the piece you’re avoiding.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yes, you do. You have fifteen days before installation.”

“That’s not enough time.”

“Then work quickly.”

I gape at him. “You just spent ten minutes telling me you’re proud of me, and now you’re giving me a nervous breakdown.”