Chapter Thirty-Five
Mika set down her canvases, leaning them against her car. Across the gravel lot, she saw Leif and waved to him. He jogged toward her. “Alright, let’s see.” Leif reached for the paintings.
Mika scooted to block him. “Before you look, I want to say thank you for helping me.”
Leif flicked a hand. “It’s no problem. Stanley decided to move to Mount Hood. The space has been empty for a couple weeks now. I’m happy to let you use it. Plus, I’m going to advertise that it’s available. You’ll draw in the crowd, and maybe I’ll get a new tenant. Win-win. Now you going to let me see?”
Mika drew in a deep breath and stepped to the side. She’d finished nine paintings. Ten would have been ideal, but First Thursday would be shutting down in November. If she wanted to exhibit, it was now or wait until the spring.
“I’m still a little rusty,” she said as Leif turned over a painting. It was the second one she had made. Hana and Josephine in Klimt’s The Kiss. Mika wrung her hands. There was a natural fear in putting her work on display. A gallery was where people came to judge you. “I’m thinking of enrolling in some night classes at U of P.”
Leif stuck up a hand and quieted Mika. He put the painting down, then turned to the next. A painting of Shige and Hiromi recast in American Gothic. He turned to another, then another. The last one, a self-portrait. Mika as the Virgin Mary—she’d just finished it a few days ago after she’d returned from Paris.
The trip had been all her dreams fulfilled and more. She had stayed in a small room with a saggy mattress in the heart of the city. She’d walked everywhere and seen the Mona Lisa, The Coronation of Napoleon, Van Gogh’s self-portrait . . . but it was a sculpture that made her finally weep—the Winged Victory of Samothrace. A headless woman with feathery wings spread wide, standing against the wind. Undaunted.
“These are amazing,” Leif said.
Mika beamed. “Thanks.”
It didn’t take long to hang the art. All nine pieces positioned at eye level. Mika set up a table with refreshments, then walked the area, watching artists prep their booths outside. She came to the place she and Thomas had had their first moment, nearly touching, laughter between them. She felt it then, the weight of the solitary, lonely nights pressing against her. But it wasn’t suffocating. Maybe someday she’d find somebody to spend time with. She was ready now. More willing. Her heart open. Mika had surrendered Penny but what she really needed to do was surrender herself to life. The inevitability of pain and suffering, of happiness and joy.
Penny hadn’t responded to her painting or letter. But Mika held out hope. Penny could take decades to come around, and Mika would be there. She had meant what she’d said. I will wait for you.
“Hey! I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing out here?” Hana strode to Mika, pulling her coat around her. “People are arriving.”
Mika let out a long breath, pushing Thomas and Penny from her mind. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The gallery seemed to fill up in a matter of seconds. Everyone came to celebrate Mika and eat the sweaty cheese she’d put out. Tuan and Charlie loved their likeness in Homer’s Summer Night. Mika was deep in conversation with the artist next door, chatting about how she’d developed her concepts. “It’s like you’re reinventing the European canon,” he said. “You really should meet my agent . . .”
Mika blushed. She opened her mouth to reply when a hand tapped her shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said, turning away from the artist. Her mouth parted in surprise. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A face that mirrored hers. “Penny! What . . . what are you doing here?”
“Surprise,” Penny said meekly, opening her hands.
Mika moved quickly and steered them to a quiet corner. “What are you doing here?!” she asked again. “Wait. Does your dad know you’re here?” Mika pictured Penny boarding a plane on her own. Thomas returning home from work to find an empty house. She wanted so badly to touch Penny. Stroke her hair. Hold her hands. But she held back. She didn’t want to scare Penny off. Didn’t want to disrespect her boundaries. Even though she wondered if Penny still held a space in her heart for her. Even though all she wanted to chant was: Let me love you.
Penny rolled her eyes. “Of course he does. He’s here, actually. Well, at the hotel. He thought we might want to chat first.” Thomas was here? In Portland? “Anyway, I saw your post on Instagram about your first show tonight.” Penny chewed her lip. “I wanted to come, and I thought you might want that.” She gestured at the door, where Mika’s dancer painting lay carefully wrapped and leaning, ready for display. Mika’s throat squeezed tight. Her eyes fell heavily on Penny. “It’s cool that I’m here, right? I read your letter, and I thought it was kind of an open invitation . . .”
“Yes.” Mika’s voice sounded flimsy and weak, happy and relieved too. “Of course it is. I am so happy to see you.” You returned to me.
“Well, good.” Penny rocked back on her heels. They stood gazing at each other for a moment. Their smiles seeming to draw all the light in the room toward them.
“Should we hang it up?” Mika asked after a moment.
They found an empty space on the wall and placed the dancer painting there. That made ten. The collection was finished. Complete.
Penny tilted her head. “It’s a beautiful painting. It’s been hanging in my room. Every time I see it, it’s like the first time. I discover something new in it.”
Mika’s mouth gently curved upward.
“It reminds me of my mom. Both of you, actually. My moms.” Penny glanced unsurely at Mika.
Mika chewed her cheek. “That was the purpose, I think. Sometimes, you don’t know what the art is until you create it. The meaning, you know? But it kind of crystallized for me just now. I think you’ve been focusing on the finding and not the loss.” It had been the opposite for Mika. She’d been focusing on the loss, what she’d had, the baby she’d let go of. She could never get that time with Penny back. The time she’d missed not painting. The past is set, but the future is fluid.
“Explain,” Penny said seriously.
Mika regarded Penny. “You dove headlong into this relationship with Portland and me, finding something, I think, to fill you up. When all along, I think you should have been focused on what you’ve lost—the grieving. Your adoptive mother died. I couldn’t keep you. It’s okay to be sad.”
Penny considered Mika’s words for a long while. She inhaled. “I miss my mom a lot. Growing up, I missed you a lot, even though I never knew you. Does that make sense?” Penny hurried to say.
“Perfect sense.”
“I don’t know . . .” A tear slid down Penny’s cheek. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s not because I’m sad. Or maybe I am. But I’m mad too.”
Mika dragged in a breath. “At me?”
“At you, at myself, at my mother, my dad. The whole world.”
“Fair enough.” Mika nodded. “Does it help at all to know I’m mad at my mother too?”
“What are you mad at her for?”
Mika gazed over Penny’s shoulder and caught Hana’s and Charlie’s eyes. They were watching, smiles asking if she was okay. Mika smiled back and returned to Penny. “What am I mad at my mother for?” Mika repeated. She wasn’t sure what circuitous path Penny was leading her on, but Mika would follow her down. All roads led to Penny. She’d always been the destination. “For not believing in me.” For being angry. For being unhappy. For being unable to bear what happened to her daughter. But just as Mika was angry, she also understood. Hiromi couldn’t carry that weight, the knowledge that her daughter had been hurt. Hiromi had done the best she could. Mika had done the best she could too. Too often, mothers were villains or saints. It started with fairy tales. A wicked stepmother so jealous of her daughter, she makes her sleep near the fireplace and forbids her from going to a ball. Or a fairy godmother who makes all the heroine’s dreams come true. Why was there no in between? “What are you mad at yours for?”
“For dying. For writing me a stupid letter that I can never respond to. For never taking me to an Asian grocery store.” The tears had slowed. Penny took a steadying breath.
“Penny,” Mika whispered, feeling an acute ache. Caroline’s death had shoved Penny onto the same path as Mika. Both disconnected from their mothers. The loss was incalculable. Left them in the woods to figure out life for themselves. No mother to learn from. They had to discover themselves alone. That was the reason Penny sought Mika out. And Mika had accepted it because she’d wanted something from Penny too. A way to make everything okay. She saw in Penny salvation. Redemption. But that was unfair. “Tell me more. Why are you mad at your dad?” She could guess, but Mika didn’t want her relationship with Penny to be like her relationship with Hiromi—stilted with silence, letting things fester like an open wound.
“You two slept together,” Penny said flatly.
“I won’t deny it, but what exactly bothers you about it? Is it me? Would it be different if it was another woman? A stranger?” The crowd had thinned—the hour growing late.
“This is really uncomfortable to talk about,” Penny pointed out.
Mika thought about silence again. About breaking it. “We don’t have to, but I think we should.”
Penny was quiet for a moment. “You were supposed to be only for me. Not for him. But then again, I don’t know if it would have been better if it was a stranger. I’d probably still be upset. My dad is the consistent one. I can count on him, you know? I think of my parents as having this great love story, and seeing him with someone else doesn’t feel right.”
“So, you want to change, but you want everyone else to stay the same?”
“Pretty much,” Penny answered, jutting her chin up.
Mika smiled but didn’t let it show in her voice. “Seems a touch unfair.”
“Life is unfair.”
“True.”
“What’s up with you two anyway? Was it like . . . serious?”
Mika sucked in her cheeks. If she wanted Penny to be an open book, Mika would have to reciprocate. Even if she didn’t want to admit the truth to herself. “It was, on my end, at least. I can’t speak for your father.” I can’t be with someone I don’t care about, Thomas had said. Mika’s throat felt like it was going to collapse. “I liked him. He’s fun and funny. At first, I think we were lonely without your company. You leave quite the gap. But then it grew into something else. You should talk to him about it,” Mika encouraged.
“I did,” Penny said. “He said you made him happy.”
“He made me happy too,” Mika said. Wasn’t there an adage out there about finding a partner based on who you become with them?
“Well, I’m emotionally spent.” Penny wiped the last of her tears away, done crying.
“Me too. But I’m so glad you’re here. What about school?” Mika lifted a lock of Penny’s hair and stared at her bemusedly.
“Psh,” said Penny. “I’m playing hooky for a long weekend. Senior year doesn’t matter much anyway.”
“I feel like that’s not true,” Mika said.
Penny grinned and hooked an arm through Mika’s. “Come on and give me a tour. I want to hear all about the paintings. Mostly how I inspired them, and I am your muse for life now.”
Mika steered Penny around the gallery, introducing her to Hayato, who’d stopped by with Seth. Soon enough, the wine ran dry, and all the sweaty cheese had been consumed. Friends kissed Mika’s cheeks goodbye; Leif left to handle a delivery at his store. The crowd dwindled to Hana, Penny, Charlie, Tuan, and Mika.
Hana held up a glass. “To Mika!” she said. “For a while, I was afraid I would have to recover your body from the forest, but now I feel like my little bird has finally flown the nest. My baby turtle is taking its first tentative steps into the ocean . . .”
Mika clicked her glass against Hana’s. “That’s enough metaphors, I think.”
They drank. Penny sipped a soda. All at once, Hana’s happy expression morphed to surprise. Mika turned to follow her friend’s gaze to the door. Thomas had just arrived.
* * *
Thomas stood there. He wore a navy blue sweater and his hands were jammed into his jean pockets. He nodded to Hana, to Tuan, to Charlie, to Penny, and stopped on Mika. “Hey, Mika,” he said, looking right at her.
Mika blinked, outrageously unable to speak for a moment. “Hi,” she said back.
He wandered closer. “It’s good to see you.”
Mika could feel everyone watching her and Thomas. “You too,” she managed.
“These portraits . . .” Thomas surveyed the gallery and palmed the back of his head. “You’re an amazing painter. I had no idea you were so talented. I was blown away when I saw the painting you sent Penny and now . . . I’m kind of awestruck.”
Mika swallowed. “I’ve been working on some new stuff. Experimenting with the palette knife, using different trowel shapes to create textural strokes, focusing more on color . . .” She trailed off. Silence then. Mika sought to fill it. “Thanks for bringing Penny out,” she said, and at the same time Thomas said, “Do you want to go somewhere?”
They stopped. Smiled at each other. Thomas was the first to speak. “Can I take you out for a cup of celebratory coffee?”
Mika stole a glance at Penny. Her daughter blinked, smiled slightly, and dipped her chin. Mika turned back to Thomas. “I’d like that.”
“Alright,” he said. Then he crossed the room and held the door open. Mika found her coat and shrugged it on. But she stopped short of the exit. She should probably stay and clean up. She hadn’t said goodbye to her friends either.
“You ready?” Thomas asked.
“Ready,” she said on an inhale, and the word tasted good in her mouth, like fresh air. Then she walked through the door, Thomas behind her.