Paint Something

She wanted to ask why the dipping sauce was a brownish grey color, but she didn’t want to insult her mother-in-law who she had just met for the first time. Maybe it was a cultural thing. She had never eaten authentic Indian food before and take-out from Bengal Tiger hardly counted. 

“This is delicious, Mrs. Patel,” Katie spoke with her hand covering her partially full mouth. Truthfully, she didn’t really have an adventurous food palette. She always tried to like Dev’s food from his home country but it just wasn’t her cup of sweet tea, cuisine-wise. But the death stares she received from Dev’s mother were not exactly what she was hoping for. 

Katie turned toward him for help, guidance, support, anything but he was focused mainly on the discussion he was having with his little brother. She would just have to keep trying.

“So, how was your flight from India, Ayah? Did y'all sit in the same row?” The ten-year-old girl met Katie’s gaze fleetingly before turning to her mother, acknowledging the look of disapproval, and putting her head back down toward her meal. Katie kicked Dev under the table.

Jolting up, he knew the attack was a cry for help. 

“Mama, it’s so nice that you and the twins made it all the way here to visit for the holidays.” His voice had a nervousness to it that Katie appreciated and fully understood. His mother grunted in response. The first true sign that she wasn’t actually deaf. No, she was just ignoring Katie. Katie and Dev shared a look across their adjacent shoulders before suffering through the rest of the lunch in silence. 

“So the bed is made up for you...” Dev showed his mother into the bedroom. The bedroom that they shared when his hostile family was safely eight thousand miles away. Again, the grunt of acknowledgement escaped his mother’s lips before she pushed her way into the room, leaving her too large purse directly on the spectacularly clean duvet Katie just had dry cleaned. She caught her breath but held her tongue, instead strongly gripping a bunch of the shirt covering Dev’s lower back. They stood together in the doorway, watching his mother inspect the room. 

Dev and Katie had married three years prior, much to the great chagrin of his parents. They had an intimate wedding in the courthouse with her sister as witness. Well, her sister and her sister’s five children, one all but suckling on the tit during the service. 

Throughout the years, Dev had made efforts to unite Katie and his family, even going so far as to buy tickets for them to visit his hometown of New Delhi but a sudden car accident and brief hospital stay later kept Katie from making the trip.

Upon much insistence from Katie, Dev still made the trip without her; her reasoning being, “a broken leg don’t take much help.” See, where Katie came from, women were taught to take care of themselves. In Texas, a strong woman owned a gun and was taught to use it. Katie didn’t own a gun, but she did know how to use one. 

He was gone for ten days and had reported trying his very best to soften his family to the idea of him marrying a “western woman”. Katie knew the odds were slim, but she appreciated his efforts nonetheless.

In her inspection, Mrs. Patel had found her way over to Katie’s hobby corner. Katie had many hobbies. Or rather, she started many hobbies but never saw any of them through. For instance, her scrapbooking shelf was littered with half cut pictures and design pages. Stickers were spilling out left and right and you could see a glimpse of a glue gun spilling over the side of the shelf. 

Next, there was the violin experiment. Why couldn’t a woman in her late twenties with no musical background or experience pick up the violin and become an expert? Nothing more to say on that topic. Not to mention the great knit-a-thon of 2018. After the feeling returned to her hands, Katie vowed she’d never pick up a needle again. 

The hobbies were kept in this corner of their small, one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. And of course, ever the darling, Dev supported Katie in all her endeavors, no matter how unreachable they might have seemed to him. Hell, he even tried to join in on the 2017 yoga experience, only to be kicked in the face one to many times by, what Katie’s online instructor called, a three-legged downward facing dog pose. Their apartment really was small. 

And now, as Dev and Katie watched his mother poke around the neatly cluttered corner, lightly brushing her fingertips over the scattered paper and pencil shavings, she paused on a long, thin piece of wood with a clean bristled tip. A paintbrush.

“Who paints?” Mrs. Patel asked the question to the room, handling the brush with a confusing amount of care. 

Dev nudged Katie forward.

“Well,” She began, not exactly sure how to explain the fact that she bought the kit a year ago but never had the time (or desire) to use it. “It’s mine. But I’ve never used it.”

Mrs. Patel turned her head, looking directly at Katie with obvious dissatisfaction. “And why not?” 

Katie fought the urge to cower under the intensity of the gaze. “I don’t know.” It was the truth. She didn’t know. She had bought the set on sale at Michael’s the previous summer. The cover art made it look so easy. She thought why not give it a try. Truthfully, she was painfully inexperienced with art. Finance was where her true skills lied but there’s no rainy day fun in that.

A sudden flash wiped across her face and she saw Mrs. Patel hold the paint brush out for Katie to grasp.

“Paint something.” 

After an uncomfortable amount of time, Katie grabbed the paintbrush, albeit fearfully, as Mrs. Patel snatched her purse from the bed. She walked past both slack-jawed occupants of the room without another word. As she exited, Katie whipped around. She furiously waved the paintbrush now gripped in her right hand at her husband in a manner of angry confusion.

“Paint something? What does that mean?” She was aghast. She didn’t know how to paint. It was just something she picked up, on a whim. It was meaningless to her.

Taking a step toward Katie, shushing her dramatic tone, Dev put his hands on her shoulders both in a nurturing manner but also a show of restraint.

“Do you even have a canvas?” Dev looked over her toward the hobby corner, a grin threatening to escape from the depths of his expression.

“This is not funny!” Katie was whisper-screaming at her husband who was finding far too much amusement in this situation. “I got a blank canvas when I bought the paint set. It’s behind the dartboard on the floor leaning against the wall (another one of Katie’s failed hobby attempts).

Dev walked around Katie and pulled the white canvas from the place she mentioned it would be. As disorganized as her endeavors may be, at least she always knew where they all were. Katie watched as Dev blew the dust off the top. He pushed the canvas toward her in the exact space and position as his mother had merely seconds before.

“Well,” He smiled and raised his eyebrows, challengingly. “Paint something.”

Katie spent a prolonged amount of time staring at that blank canvas. Dev and his family had long since gone out for an afternoon adventure through the greater Bay area. She didn’t know how much time she would have before Mrs. Patel would come back and inspect her work. Like a snooty art appraiser looking for the next piece of his refined collection. 

She sat cross legged at the foot of her bed and stared down at the canvas leaning against the faux fireplace on the opposite wall. She held a line of acrylic paint colors in her hand and the damn paintbrush in the other. She had no idea what she was doing. But she had nothing to lose.

“Texas strong,” She murmured to herself before plopping down on the floor in front of the canvas. She popped open the first color and went to town on the piece. Long strokes, short strokes, dotted points and deliberate lines, Katie let the brush guide her to where it wanted to go. A myriad of colors and patterns filled the blank spaces with brightness and depth. 

After a certain while, Katie actually found herself enjoying this. She smiled as she put the finishing touches and heard the sound of Dev returning home. His boot steps were akin to elephant stomps, an unmistakable noise. With his family no doubt in tow, Katie felt the sweat of nervousness begin to form on her brow. Was this what his mother wanted? 

She stared at her now brilliantly illustrated canvas and knew she should feel nervous, ashamed, or even regretful. But, remarkably, Katie found herself feeling an entirely different emotion. She felt proud. She couldn’t believe such art had come from her own hands, her own mind. She couldn’t wait to start another painting.

“What about just relaxing on the couch for a minute, Mama,” Dev’s voice echoed too loudly from the hallway to alert Katie of her mother’s approach. But she suddenly felt a moment of ease wash over her. She wasn’t worried. Even if Mrs. Patel hated the painting, even if she scoffed in its direction, and Katie’s, and never spoke to her again, it’s not like she had a glimmering personality for Katie to miss out on. She’d just have awkward, uncomfortable holidays for the next fifty to sixty years.

Katie heard them both enter the room but she didn’t turn to meet their gaze. She sat in the same place on the floor in front of the fireplace, although now she had about as much paint on her person as was on the canvas.

The silence that filled the room echoed loudly in Katie’s ears. She knew her husband was itching to say something complimentary, encouraging, but even Dev held his tongue and awaited his mother’s response. 

Katie stood, moving to unblock the view of the painting as Mrs. Patel stepped into the same space. Kneeling down, she took in the canvas at its full view. Katie and Dev shared a look over his mother’s hunched form. Equivalent expressions closed their faces. 

“What is your favorite meal, Katie?” Mrs. Patel asked, as if asking the canvas itself.

Catching Katie completely unawares, she responded “Chicken and waffles,” Katie automatically. Internally she smacked the backside of her head and wished she had said something more mature like filet mignon or buttered lobster tail. She looked over back at Dev with a bemused look. But this time, his features did not mirror hers. This time he looked calm, assured, almost happy. The expression confused Katie even more.

Without another word, Dev’s mother rose from her crouched position and left the room. Actually, she left the apartment entirely. Dev peeked his head out of the door before looking back toward Katie who was rooted to the spot.

Did his mother despise the painting so much that she couldn’t even stay in the same apartment as it? Was it too expressive? Too abstract? Not a portrait or landscape drawing like she had expected? Katie felt the fume starting to boil behind her ears. 

“It’s a beautiful painting, honey.” Dev reached down, picked up the discarded artwork and placed it on an empty spot on the mantle. “I didn’t know you were so talented.” 

“Apparently, I’m not…” Katie didn’t want to dwell on the crushing disappointment that was building inside of her. She blew her one chance for redemption in his mother’s eyes. 

Dev opened his mouth to protest, but Katie put her hand up to quiet him. She took his hand in hers and they walked together out of the room. In the living room sat his twin siblings, twenty-two years Dev’s junior, enthralled in some obscure television show. The couple plopped down on the connecting couch and tried feebly to enjoy the program with them.

Twenty minutes had elapsed before Mrs. Patel erupted through the front door, grocery bags in tow. Dev and his siblings jumped up and quickly began assisting his mother, the memory of years of slapped wrists haunting them all. Katie fought the instinct to help.

“Mama, you didn’t have to go get all this. We already stocked the fridge with traditional food like you asked.” 

“I want to make a meal my daughter-in-law loves.” Mrs. Patel’s voice was low, curt, emotionless. “To welcome her to the family.” She did not look at Dev or in Katie’s direction on the couch. Instead, she pulled out all the ingredients she had bought to make authentic chicken and waffles. For her daughter-in-law. 

The look of pride on Dev’s face was apparent as he whipped around to face Katie. The air was full of silent celebration. She moved to help her prepare the meal when she noticed a clean, blank white canvas laying on the kitchen table. Katie traced the edges gently with her fingertips then looked up at Mrs. Patel with an appreciative smile.

Catching her eye, her mother-in-law winked.