For what?
She gave me a quick smile, as if realizing she’d been found out, and then said, “Are you going to try and paint this as soon as we get back?”
I nodded. “I’ll try. That’s why I’m hoping I can remember this sight just so.” But now she would be in the picture, her curious face standing out amid the white ice and green mountains. I was suddenly aware of how small, tiny, and helpless the both of us were on this cold mass of advancing history.
“Do you ever paint?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure why, she just always seemed so interested in my art, asking to look at my sketchbook every day. I’d been more than happy to show it to her. Her expression turned to fear. I couldn’t figure out what I said wrong.
Then it hit me. “Oh,” I quickly said, feeling like an idiot. “Sorry, Gemma. I forgot that your father was an artist. That must be a question you hear all the time.”
She looked away, a cold breeze sweeping silky chocolate strands across her face. “No, it’s okay.” She rubbed her lips together for a few long beats. Somewhere above us, hidden in the clouds, a helicopter whirred. “I did used to paint, actually,” she admitted. “I was pretty good. My paintings were being shown alongside my dad’s the night he . . . the night of the accident. But I didn’t paint after that.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes blazed as she glanced at me. I was sure she was going to tell me to fuck off with the constant questions but she didn’t. She took in a deep breath and composed herself. “Because of my hand. I loved the landscapes, just like my father, but my thing, what made me special, was being extremely detailed. My canvases were small and my subjects were smaller. I loved just spending hours and hours and days working one dot, one stroke at a time. It took me away some place, all that concentration, you know?”
I nodded. I knew very well. Life would pass you by while you were in that world, but it was the only world I needed.
She sighed. “But I can barely write my name neatly now and so I certainly can’t fucking paint the way I used to. If I try and do anything with my left hand that requires too much precision, I get the shakes. And though I guess you could say I’m ambidextrous now, I can’t get that same exactness again. The details are all lost and it looks like mush . . .” She trailed off and looked away, her focus on the group that had just disappeared over a mound of ice. She blinked a few times and I was certain she was about to cry. “I just can’t paint.”
I’d never heard her sound so sad.
Instinctively, I reached out for her arm and pulled her to me. She lifted her feet, the crampons strapped to her boots coming out of the ice and allowing her to fall into my arms. I didn’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my art, and it broke my heart to see that Gemma had suffered that loss, along with so much.
I held her there, aware that it was only for now, that I could only try and give her comfort, until someone in the group called out our names. Before they could think we had both fallen into an ice hole, we broke apart and hurried after them.
“Wow,” Vera says softly after I tell her about the glacier hike, having stayed silent the whole conversation. “That’s heavy shit, Josh. When was this again?”
“Yesterday,” I tell her.
“Have you talked to her about it again?”
“No, I haven’t been alone with her. After the hike, we met up with Nick the Dick and got some lunch before we came here. Amber and I spent the night in one of the cabins they have here. Reminds me of the ones we used to stay in on Salt Spring Island, you know the A-frame ones? But Gemma was with Nick in the bus, by his side the whole night.”
She makes an annoyed growl. “Ugh, that’s frustrating.”
“Right,” I say, exhaling loudly. I look over my shoulder to see Gemma packing the rest of breakfast away in the bus but she’s too far away to hear me. “I just don’t know why she’s with him, you know? And why did she invite me along with them? I mean, she’s not making any plays for me. Fuck, I can’t even read her half the time.”
Vera is silent for a moment before she says, “She’s scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Losing everything, maybe. If I were in her shoes, I’d be scared to leave the person that I’m with and take a chance on the one that’s fleeting. You’re just a visitor, Josh. You’re leaving next month. I think it’s just too big of a risk for her, ya know?”
“Is that what Mateo would say?” Vera’s man friend went through pretty much the same thing. He was married when he met Vera and took a chance on her, even though she was as fleeting as it gets. Of course, that all worked out for the best for her. To Mateo, the risk, Vera, was worth it.