The Painted Table(78)

“Aww,” she objected, “you know what they say, ‘All work and no play makes Jack . . .’”

“So, ‘they’ think I’m a dull boy?” He laughed.

“Never,” she said emphatically, planting a kiss on his lips.

Now, in robe and slippers, she pads into the dark garage and raises the door. The morning sun, as if eagerly waiting, floods inside.

She turns and admires the tabletop, finally free of its multicolored past. She glides a hand along the silky surface. Last night she sanded its fine grain until it yielded a delicate sheen. Its daylight debut is even better than she’d hoped. But there is much more to do. Today she’ll begin restoring the apron, that intimidating four-inch-deep carved piece that rims the perimeter.

At eight o’clock, Saffee drives the VW to the hardware store and outfits herself with two gallons of stronger, smellier remover, a wickedly stiff wire brush, and a blunt probe to remove loosened paint from deep crevices. And more gloves. And more sandpaper.

Back in the garage, Saffee clips her swinging ponytail to the top of her head and pours a quantity of the new remover into a work bucket. Wrinkling her nose, she drags a brush full of the amber liquid onto a small area of carved vines. The serpentine twists and turns have always suggested to her some struggle between good and evil. They probably represented something similar to her mother. Joann frequently had pointed out dualities, such as truth versus lies, beauty versus ugliness.

She imagines her great-grandfather Kirkeborg coaxing the wood to release the enigmatic motif with his chisel. She wonders if he, like her mother, had imagined a certain presence. Her talented ancestor would undoubtedly be terribly disappointed to know that his lovely work had been reduced to a trap for paint.

The remover bubbles. She tries the new brush, applying pressure to the stiff bristles to test them. She’s learned that many layers of paint can be scratched and grooved without jeopardizing the wood beneath. Progress is almost imperceptible and Saffee has abundant time to muse while she scrapes. Being unfamiliar with Norwegian lore, to her the design suggests something Shakespearean.





Whose reptilian head lurks in yonder braided vine?

Whose sin’ster eye leers my very soul?





She chuckles, just like her mother used to, entertained by her own strung-together words. Jack advised Saffee to be grateful for gifts from her mother. She’s not sure if composition is one of them. Did Joann write something about this vine? If so, it might be in one of those spiral notebooks. Saffee debates again whether or not she wants to read them.

She wonders if the vine has a botanical name. She’ll have to ask Leif Bergstrom, the Norwegian plant pathologist (pathologist, how fitting)—if she ever sees him again. He seems to have disappeared.

How many times as a young girl did Saffee see her mother apply wet paint over dry with the intensity of a combatant? Her mother’s every stroke seemed to increase her agitation. But conversely, as Saffee wages a new war, this one to loosen and remove those painted layers, she senses liberation. In fact, a triple liberation. She dares believe that the wood, and she herself, and her mother also . . . “Oh, God,” she whispers. “Please, Lord, set her free!”

She’s trying to establish a habit of calling her dad every Sunday afternoon. She’s learned that Joann seems to be coping acceptably well and showing interest in minor decorating of their new mobile home. He does not suggest that she and Jack visit. Neither does Saffee.

Coming from their street-side mailbox, Jack appears on the driveway. He steps into the garage, waving a postcard.

“A princess!” He sounds amused. “They made her a princess!”

“Who? What are you talking about?” She puts down the bristle brush and takes the card from him, trying not to stain it with her gloves.

It’s from April. Saffee recalls that the last they had heard she was in Italy. Wrote she couldn’t get an audience with the pope, so she settled for a Swiss guard or something like that.

Saffee reads aloud, “‘I’m on Samos—a tiny, picturesque Greek island. Gorgeous. The villagers have made me their princess because of my blond hair.’”

“Well, that sounds like April,” she says. “She was always pretending something.”

“I look forward to meeting her someday,” Jack says. “She sounds pretty adventurous.”

On the driveway, Jack raises the small hood at the back of the VW in order to change the oil. Saffee slops more remover onto a layer of cracking blue paint and continues to think about April. She regrets her own years of rudeness designed to keep kissy-huggy April at arm’s length. But if her postcards are to be believed, April sounds okay and Saffee is happy for her.