I went to the window and looked out, but instead of a meadow with a few
lingering patches of snow, I saw ocean -- as if I was standing on a
cliff overlooking San Francisco Bay. Beneath me the waves turned into
white surf, broke up where boulders emerged from the ocean's floor,
regrouped, moved slowly back out to sea. It was 1948, almost exactly five
years since the day I got the telegram that said that Luke was dead.
I remembered thinking that Sid was right about the problem with my watercolors
but wanting nothing but the way the paint flowed on
the wet surface. Was it possible that the effect I sought could be
achieved in oils? I saw Charlotte Bronte. Her face placid while a
flowing undefined background of black and blood red enveloped her
semi-shapeless form. Only the merest suggestion of her dead sisters in
the background. Her brother's hand on a pistol, formed by only somewhat
controlled paint. Her own death. Women's troubles. Bleeding.
California was the last place that I saw him. I mean Luke, my husband. I
have been here ever since.