A Colorful Past

Hallie gasped when she walked through the front door. The foyer was glowing in fiery red, blending seamlessly into a vibrant orange, then melding into a luscious turquoise. Daniel frowned at her expression. “Problem?”

“No, I—” the young painter had to get her breath back. “I just…it’s such a gorgeous palette; are you sure you want to cover it up?”

Daniel nodded. “That’s what I’m paying you for. Just white is fine.”

Drifting after him into the living room, Hallie breathed in the glorious canary yellows and lime greens offset by a delicate mauve. “Was it like this when you moved in?”

Barely glancing at the walls, Daniel said, “No, my…it was done a long time ago. I just don’t want it anymore.”

“Did you do this?” Hallie gasped.

Daniel did not look at her. “No. Just white for this room, too.”

The kitchen was a mix of sage green and Swiss coffee, melting into a rich dark plum. “The combinations are really unusual, really specific,” Hallie noted. “Was this for something, or…?”

“Like a pale yellow is fine for this one,” Daniel said. “I don’t mean to be rude, I know it’s your area, but I didn’t hire you to keep it the way it is.”

“Well, are you trying to sell the place?” Hallie wanted to know. “I could help you better if I could understand what you’re going for.”

With a heavy sigh, Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets. “Look, this all meant something to somebody else, alright? That person isn’t here anymore, and I’m sick to death of looking at it. Now, can you erase the place or not?”

Hallie’s mouth clamped shut. “Okay.”

“Just white for all the main rooms, like a light blue for the bathrooms, and then yellow for the kitchen and the small bedroom.”

“The nursery.”

A muscle twitched in Daniel’s jaw. “Yeah. I have tarps in the garage, and I’ll reimburse you for the paint.”

“Okay.” Hallie looked around at the brilliant rainbow singing through the plaster. “Maybe three eight-hour sessions, depending on how many coats it’ll take to cover your darks. If I start today, I can knock it out over the weekend.”

Daniel’s shoulders fell as he let go of the breath he’d been holding. “Great.”

Taking her phone out of her pocket, Hallie said, “Let me take some pictures so I can see what kind of coverage you need.”

* * *

“I mean, seriously, look at this,” Hallie said, flicking through the images on her phone. “I would kill to have an interior like this. This is like if an episode of Extreme Makeover had, like, an ounce of taste.”

Oscar peered over the small screen. “Eh, bit busy for me. Looks like a woman did it.”

“Sexist,” Hallie snorted. “A woman with balls, though. Look, there’s black and orange in the nursery! Suck it, blue and pink.”

Oscar chuckled as he dabbed a spot of yellow on the top of a paint can and hammered it closed. “So, why the one-eighty?”

Hallie shrugged. “I dunno. Either he inherited the place, or got saddled with it in the divorce. I know some class act is better off without him.”

The paint mixer tapped a thick finger on the inoffensive can. “People ask for white paint for two reasons: either they’re trying to sell the most acceptable version of themselves, or they’re trying to cover up a mistake. Colors that bold, choices that particular: that wasn’t always a mistake.”

“Aw, you think somebody hurt him?” Hallie mused.

“I’m thinking about your commission,” Oscar said, rubbing his fingers together. “Good listeners get big tips, sweetheart.”

Rolling her eyes, Hallie said, “The only thing he's gonna care about is drips and deadlines. If this tightwad were any tighter, he’d turn his ass into a diamond mine."

* * *

For most of the weekend, Hallie had the house to herself, working undisturbed except for the music in her headphones. She paired her playlist with the palette of each room before the glorious sunsets were obscured. Tinkling baroque pieces for the marigold and dusk rose of the den. Bombastic marches for the vermillion and cyan of the upstairs bathroom. Smooth jazz for the cool tones of the kitchen. It was early 2000s punk wailing in her ears when a shadow appeared at the door to the nursery.

“Oh, sorry!” Hallie said, ripping the bud out of her ear. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Daniel took his time looking around the room, still with his coat on. “You’re making good progress.”

“Uh, yeah,” Hallie said, climbing down from her ladder and slipping off her work gloves. “Probably make tomorrow a half day. How do you like it so far?”

“It’s fine.”

“The neutral colors of your dreams?” Hallie pressed. Daniel smiled briefly, but there was no joy in it. Hallie flashed a cartoonish wince and started back up the ladder again. “Glad I was never a standup, I guess.”

“My wife had synesthesia.”

Hallie paused halfway up the ladder. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

Waving a hand around the room, Daniel said, “She did all this, she had the colors made. She had grapheme-color synesthesia, so numbers were colors to her. All these rooms…it’s a code. They’re dates.”

Hallie stepped down to the bottom of the ladder. “Like…red and green for Christmas, or...?”

“The foyer was painted the same color as the date we bought the house,” Daniel said. “The bedroom was our anniversary. The kitchen was my mother’s birthday, she passed when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Daniel sniffed, and his eyes were shining as he looked at the fresh yellow paint. “This room—you’re right, the nursery—was our son’s due date. He never had a birthday at all.”

Hallie covered her mouth. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Daniel said, “So, I know it’s a boring choice. But the more I look at these crazy colors, all I see are ghosts.”

Hovering at the foot of the ladder, Hallie said, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Daniel said, sniffing and straightening his jacket. “I just don’t want to hear about colors anymore.”

Hallie watched Daniel disappear down the still-drying hall. She stood still a moment, studying the half-covered code that had once meant the world to an optimistic synesthete. Checking to make sure her client was really gone, Hallie dialed a number on her phone. “Hey, Oscar? You can match colors from a picture, right?”

* * *

The next morning, Daniel wandered through the sterile-smelling rooms, pacing down the unfamiliar corridors. When Hallie had said she could make Sunday a half-day, Daniel had assumed she meant the first half. He made a point of not mentioning this when Hallie arrived a little after noon, looking exhausted already as she set about her work. Positioning himself in a quiet kitchen the color of cold butter, Daniel kept his expression as neutral as the drying walls when Hallie stumped back down the stairs.

“Finished,” she said. “I just need to put the tarps back in the garage.”

“Great,” said Daniel, checking his watch. “Do you do Venmo, or...?”

“Could you come out to the garage with me?”

Deciding he had no right to think anyone else was being weird, Daniel followed her through the aluminum door. Aside from the ladder and rolled-up tarps, there was something about two feet tall, covered with a drop cloth. “I just want you to see this,” Hallie said. “I can hold onto it until you’re ready.”

Lifting the cloth revealed a doll’s house. The scale was off, and there was no furniture inside, but the little kitchen was painted in the exact shades of sage and plum. The living room was awash with canary and lime, and the minute nursery was a perfect reproduction of orange, gold, and black.

“I matched the colors as best I could,” Hallie said. “I, uh…I can’t imagine what it’s like to live inside it every day. But there might come a time when you want to look back on this. And no one else in the world knows this code. So, I guess…I don’t know, I—”

Daniel folded Hallie in a crushing hug, so tight that her eyes filled with colors.