Who Names The Colors

Kintsugi

Jo sat on the back porch during the early mornings and evenings for days. Even when it wasn't a conscious decision, Jo found herself watching the sun come up and go down.

It was when she let herself cry for him.

The first few days, she was crying all the time it was upsetting her daughter. That had to stop. Zoe had been really cuddly since Harry had given her back their birthday painting. Zoe had found her on her knees that day, in the dark, and she'd demanded food, because toddlers are all id, even the loving ones. That's what got Jo up, but her daughter noticed the tears not long after that, and was blubbering herself when she noticed that her mummy couldn't stem the waterworks, not while she made her a quick couple of pancakes, or while she washed the dishes, or picked up the little gymnastics mat she'd been moving. Jo wasn't even aware of them by this point.

She needed to become aware.

Zoe was so upset about Jo's sadness, so she started hiding it as best she could, and after a week she stopped buying wine because she had been drinking a couple bottles a night without painting a thing.

Her evenings were following a predictable worrisome pattern, she would feed Zoe, and give her a bath, cuddle on the couch through whatever show the little one loved at the moment. Carry her up the stairs, lie her down, tuck her in with a book and a kiss. Then she had nothing to tend to for the rest of the night.

The trek down stairs filled her with dread. With Zoe asleep, the bottom floor would be empty and quiet, a tomb, and she'd inter herself on the couch with a bottle of wine, she would fall asleep there usually mid-way through the second bottle. She'd woken up to a bloodstain one morning and been relieved it was just her spilled bottle. She wouldn't have been so surprised if her emotions had manifested a physical mark. Not that it was easier to scrub up for that.

She was beginning to think she needed to scrub up, or numb out her whole life. The options for the latter were no good and left a small bean unprotected, so she needed to figure out how to scrub up.

She was a mess right now.

Her days were bleary, she may have been hungover, but she wasn't sure if it was the fruit of the vines or that she was cut off from her vine. In more ways than one, more vines than one. Wine usually meant painting, but just like the couch had become her bed, because he haunted her bedroom, his ghost lurked about the studio in a way she could not face.

The feelings of that room, the memories were so overwhelming. She had closed her studio doors. It seemed silly to put a padlock on the outside, but there was a virtual one there.

She couldn't go in there. Jo had tried one evening, stumbled in actually, and seen his outline, her hands had hit the wall when she'd tripped over her own feet, and they'd framed him. She could feel him. It was the closest she was going to get to tracing his features again, he may be a world away. She counted the days since he left, or he may be just an hour away.

But he was gone.

She kissed the wall, where his lips would be, when she could fill him in. Left a lip balm print for reference. And closed up the doors before she ripped all of the paintings, and broke her mirrors and painted over his undone face.

With the doors closed, she could trap him and her feelings in there.

She had called Ethan, "Um..." she'd choked over her tears a bit, couldn't believe she was crying over Harry while leaving the message, "I wanted to tell you, it's over, he um, he left, for Montreal....I'm so sorry, so sorry nugget. I hope you've talked to Sean. Um....call me when you are up to it, sorry baby. I know, well, I don't know. But I'm sorry."