Still Life 101
By Caroline Kahlenberg
I’m the girl who sketches fetuses in Drawing class. I’m not a girl, not really, but I’m three decades younger than the second-youngest class member, Dorothy, a retired science teacher who offers a tender smile when the other ladies shout over the heater, doesn’t the girl already have a child?
They’re just a bit graphic, dear, Dorothy said last week when I presented my latest sketch of unborn babies. Ms. Haddad had put two sweet potatoes on the table, said to draw them however we liked. My sweet potatoes began as blobs floating in whirlpools of fluid, then morphed, as always, into nearly-cooked fetuses, only ever in black and gray: Tiny fingernails, tiny cheekbones, wisps of hair, dimpled elbows, swirling ears.
Unique. Ms. Haddad settles on the same word every class. She’s an abstract artist filling in for the teacher on maternity leave. Definitely unique.
I’m insatiable, I know. My first husband told me so years ago, at the Boston Marriott on our fourth anniversary, when his mother flew in to watch our son. I called the front desk to request goose down pillows, not those synthetic ones, because I wanted another baby that night. Couldn’t let my son end up like me, single child of a single mother, who now lay flat in Cedar Memorial Cemetery under pounds of snow and slush. No, my son wouldn’t ever have to eat Christmas dinners alone in the car, clutching mom’s pearls without heat, protected from pitying onlookers by frostbitten windows. Yes, I told the concierge, we could wait a few moments, even though the ex was waving his hand, the ex had booked a carriage ride on the Common. He packed his bags while I waited for the pillows. Flung the hotel key at my belly—why always more, more, more?
You already have one, Dorothy whispered to me at the break, her veined hand grasping my elbow, as if she wanted to touch my shoulder but couldn’t reach that far. That’s all I meant. One more than I got. Dorothy draws the same thing every class: Her mother standing inside her cozy Minnesota kitchen, chopping whatever objects Ms. Haddad offers, transforming them into winter delights. Mama’s famous sweet potato casserole, Dorothy announces to the class. Mama’s famous chicken pot pie.
I wanted to tell Dorothy about Doug, the man who, until last week, fed full sentences of ABC macaroni to my boy while I sketched fetuses in class. But Doug left on Thursday, after I told him that I drew snow-topped houses of my cozy upstate childhood—and apropos cozy, apropos childhood, maybe tonight we should try again. Doug took my palms into his and said it’s fine, he’s fine, he’s happy as a step-dad, it’s all he’s ever wanted, really, plus he couldn’t bear to see my body break, again and again and again. The doctors already said our genes didn’t match, something about chromosomal imbalance. That’s why all the losses. That’s why Still Life Drawing 101 every Tuesday and Thursday evening at the JCC.
I said okay, but upstairs, as I listened to Doug scrub the crusty cheese off my boy’s plastic plate, I pulled out a pencil from underneath my goose down pillow—the last pencil I found in the corner of Mom’s house before I sold it—then swirled and swirled and swirled on my belly, never lifting my hand, the oval outline of an empty womb.
That night, I asked Doug to leave.
***
In Drawing class this evening, Ms. Haddad set out two ripe pears: one small, one large. Mine morphed into fetuses shaded black and gray, as usual, curled up on either end of my sketchpad. But their eyes were too close, their knees too bony, their ears disproportionate to their cheeks. Ms. Haddad peered over my shoulder. Maybe try color tonight? Dorothy nodded from behind her sketchpad.
I didn’t want to try color, didn’t want to change my strokes, but Ms. Haddad still hovered. I gripped the peach pencil and made a mess of my babies, shading the cheeks too light and the chins too dark. Keep going, Ms. Haddad circled back. To the large pear, I added rouge to the cheeks, flab by the hips, and hazel irises like my own—the only feature I inherited from Mom. The pear transformed into a full-bodied, middle-aged woman walking alone among snowy pines. Draw the other one, Ms. Haddad urged. And I did, because the smaller pear was still a baby on the other edge of the page, and how could a baby survive the winter alone. I added gray to its hair, wrinkles to its hands, pearls to its neck, hazel to its eyes.
Ms. Haddad plucked a pencil from her high bun, her cue to wrap up.
I’m not finished, I protested. I still needed to let the two pears meet, somehow, across the page.
It’s beautiful as is, Ms. Haddad said, unfinished.
The ladies liked my portrait. Said the smaller pear resembled Dorothy. I nodded, because for once they were sated.
It’s not really you, I told Dorothy after class, when we confronted our frostbitten cars in the parking lot.
I know, dear. She pressed her thumb to my inner wrist, then wrapped her fingers around my pulse. Like she needed to hold on, and I let her. I miss mine, too.
THE END
Author Bio: Caroline Kahlenberg is a writer and historian based in Charlottesville, VA. Her work has previously been published in StreetLight Magazine.