Let me in princess Rucas

01

I write and painted

I also walked and talked and occassionally ate pudding But mostly I write and painted everything else was unnecessary walking talking eating breathing

Writing and painting mattered more than being ambulatory or chatty or full of pudding of course I had to breathe to live and therefore to write and paint I have to be alive so I suppose breathing mattered too

But mostly the midnight colors of red black and purple mattered And green oh that particular elusive shade of green so hard to capture even with the most careful blending of oils on paper

Yes the green of his eyes mattered most of all

Not hungry today dear not even for Topioca

Talking talking there isn't time for talking

I carefully swirled green tipped fingers on the canvas that held my full attention urgency caused my chest to tighten and my head to hurt but I wasn't a fool The nurse picked up the neglected tray that had sat on a nearby table all morning I'd have to stop and eat the next food that was brought to me not only because I'd be light headed by then but also because if you didn't eat something once or twice a day paper pencil paint and canvas would disappear

I would eat when I finished his eyes They were the trickiest aspect of the stranger to recreate because they were always changing I could never capture the expression though I'd seen it in my nightmare thousands of times

It was the change I tried to paint a simple shifting of dark to light

I'd never gotten it right its easier to write about them but its not enough I want no I need to see

Always the same love a handsome devil for sure but why the same man over and over and over again

The nurse was new I didn't throw a handful of paint at her or scream my frustration or try to knock the hours old pudding from her hands it wasnt right to strike out when someone meant well I'd been told that in the beginning a lot it was something I already knew but I'd forgotten justas I'd forgotten so many things

I would never be able to remember If I had to talk at the same time but I was also afraid of losing my paint If I didn't try

He watches over me I think I see him in my dreams

I dropped my hands to my lap not even noticing the smears of green left there on an old smock from hubdreds of just such moments before

The eyes were finished but they were wrong they were too dark and angry almost frightening goosebumbs rose on the black of my neck as I looked into the wrong eyes for the hundredth time

A guardian you say like an angel The nurse her name was judy or jenny or jamie walked around the room from painting to painting names didn't matter I was terrified If I learned new names I'd lose the beloved ones I couldn't recall because they hovered on the edge of my conscious like echoes of a yesterday that never was canvases were hung and propped and stacked everywhere and these had caught het attention but no wings

The nurse had turned back to me as the not quite right shade 0f green dried on my fingers

He's not an angel

I corrected as always I felt slightly defeated but also relieved to have failed If I didn't get the eyes right then maybe such an intimidating creature didn't exist

In spite of the relief I'd be driven to try again and again 

For some reason I had to get it right an obsessive loop my doctors called it There was so much my doctors didn't understand I might have forgotten who I was before I came to st Teresa's but the sense of urgency I had to remember this one man was a life line to my lost memories I couldn't release

Not an angel

The nurse repeated thoughtfully running a finger down the handsome cherk of the man I had painted hubdreds of times since I'd been brought to the hospital a year before

Not at all

I whispered shivering as I looked into the wrong eyes

I didn't have much to bring with me to Belle Rosealie when the ivy covered wrought iron that surrounded the old house loomed large in front of me my possessions seemed even more meager The ghostly white french revival style cottage sat with silent prominence behind the elaborate it was a mansion by today standards I had only a creaky old steamer trunk filled with carefully rolled canvases a much more modern suitcase on wobbly wheels packed with the simple clothing I'd needed a st teresa's and a shoulder bag with a few personal items and meant nothing to me I didn't remember why I carried the sliver handled hairbrush or the faded lavender ribbon or the book of french fairytales worn and obviously well read

I only knew it was late and I hadn't painted all day

The hollow ache in my stomach the nerves skittering along my spine as I looked up at the glow of windows shuttered against the night mattered much less than my clean fingers and my restless need to find the man I tried so hard to recall

I missed my quiet room at st teresa's and the orderly schedule that allowed me to devote myself to his mystery but even if my benefactor hadn't died I could no longer stay I'd grown increasingly certain If I didn't remember soon it would be too late when I'd been summoned to Belle rosealie and a nurse had put me and my belongings into a car someone had hired to fetch me I didn't protest it was time my bloid sang it with the beat of my heart it was time The nurse had hugged me and promised to write

I'd never allowed myself to learn her name

The driver opened the gate and it swung wide on well oiled hinges I could see pineappled worked into the design of the ironwork but the welcome of the traditional symbolism made me uneasy instead of soothed I wasn't a visitor come to enjoy the fruits of a successful trade voyage I was marooned lost in a world that might never be grounded in the memories of my previous life again

But for some reason it was the fleur de lis rising out of the scrolled hearts along the top of the gate that caused me to dread putting one foot in front of the other to carry me through I did it anyway of course I'd been hiding away at st teresa's for too long

The walking beneath my feet was made of interlacing bricks that fit together in rows of jagged teeth I recognized the rough edges and slightly imperfect surfaces of handmade stone and found it cruel that I would remember such unimportant details about the world when I'd forgotten everything and everyone that mattered

The driver carried my trunk amd I followed him up to the imposing entrance of belle rosealie There had been a sign on the gate I'd read by the light of the street lamps the house had been bulit  one hundred and fifty years ago for the mistress of a wealthy new orleans judge just before the civil war he'd been a Gardner and she'd been a La Croix

La croix

The name caused my heartbeat to skip erratically in my chest