Exhaling Carefully

Christina Robertson

Steadying his hand wasn’t easy, but the coffee was blazes and Robert didn’t want to scald himself. He found he could sometimes hold off the shakes, which still came and went, by taking a deep, slow breath. Unfortunately, taking a deep breath just made him crave a cigarette. Slowly, cautiously, using both hands, he set his stained china mug down on the brick ledge of the back stair landing and reached for his pack of Kents. He took one out with his teeth, returning the pack in one elegant motion to the lower pocket of the canvas flak jacket he wore. He’d unearthed the crazy thing, an old Gunga Din costume piece, from his basement storage unit, thinking it might be useful.

Quitting drinking was a bitch. He needed all the fire power he could muster for this battle. Hard candy (he found Lemonheads surprisingly effective), a small sketchbook, the remaining half of a Faber-Castell 4B pencil. Cigarettes, for sure. He wouldn’t be giving those up anytime soon. The jacket had enough pockets for everything, even a small patch the right size for the smooth jade “worry stone” Solveig had given him upon his release from the atrocious county detox center, when, somewhat cavalierly he thought, she’d agreed to become his sponsor. Of course, she was pretty woo woo, but dammit, he had to admit rubbing the daft little thing with his thumb was rather soothing.

He stood erect on the landing, chin up, skillfully, meditatively drawing off his cigarette and exhaling carefully, as if delivering a delicate brushstroke onto a canvas or letting go of a child’s hand as she takes her first step. He was observing the young woman, Radha… or was it Rasha (he’d been told at some point, but hadn’t really been paying attention), hanging laundry to dry on the pitiful second floor landing across the alley. An array of small white t-shirts and larger sleeveless ones, mostly. She called and her little boy came bursting outside with extra clothes pins. He fixed his gaze on Robert, a familiar face, and at his mother’s prompting, waved. A wiry, antelope-eyed little guy. Robert hammed it up, saluting back.

As she moved, the woman’s sari, a deep malachite green, fluttered in a lovely way. However, as she worked it, the ancient pulley mechanism (indeed he couldn’t believe this antiquity still existed) squeaked, killing his reverie, replacing it with irritation. The boy disappeared, answering the call of an onerous voice from within. Robert put out his cigarette. He was supposed to be working on filler cartoons for a couple of trade magazines, locking down a piddling check or two. He was moved instead to portray Radha—as a revelation, the way she ought to be, no dreary undershirts, no weathered gray porch, no torn window screens. Pastels were the mood: lots of burnt sienna, blue-green, and gold. She didn’t know, never would, that she was actually Princess Devi, “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Well, at least considered so by LIFE Magazine a few decades ago.

By noon he had three decent portraits (the more loosely-rendered his favorite), barely a nub of sienna left and ink stains on his fingers. This flight had left him with a mean thirst for a bit of the

devil. He needed to make it to four o’clock. That is when the dried-up losers club, to which he has ostensibly recommitted himself, meets over in the church gym. There he would enjoy a donut and ease his mind, focusing on some other poor schmuck’s problems. And maybe, though jury was still out on this, unload a few of his own.

There had been a growing list of frustrations, Robert had to admit. For one thing, people were being nice. He found it particularly grating in his encounters with his typically disapproving downstairs neighbor Mrs. Georgioulis and Mrs. Cudjer, the janitor’s overly-solicitous wife (Cudjer himself wouldn’t speak to him since he’d set a small fire in his apartment). Word had gotten around the building that Robert Galen, alcoholic has-been artist, had finally hit rock bottom. Whereas he would’ve thrown his ass right out on the street, they were attempting to buoy him with grotesquely unoriginal platitudes. “It’s the first day of the rest of your life, Galen.” It takes a village. Swallowing the annoyance, he exercised basic decency toward them, just resented having to squander that capital on unimaginative do-gooders. Their sunniness gave him a headache. He was convinced their gestures of kindness were really intended to shame him; the filling of the terra cotta pot he used as a cigarette butt receptacle with a geranium, healthy meals left at his doorstep, landmines of vegetable and rice dishes.

The neighborhood was changing, and how. Robert recalled, in a hazy way, the optimistic, clear-eyed couples who bought into this co-op building at the time he and Aggie did. That was back when Aggie was doing costume work for the Goodman Theater and he, ridiculously gel-haired and narrow-tied, had begun to sell a couple of his paintings. The other rosy chaps were a young architect and a newspaper guy, a feature writer for the Tribune, their wives essentially little cherry blossoms on their lapels. Aggie, with her heavily mascara-ed eyes, punky black hair, and vintage clothing, couldn’t relate to the wives’ bland chatter. They, in turn, considered her exotic. Perhaps a bit dangerous, Robert chuckled.

The newspaperman, Wynn or some such ridiculously WASP-y name, had gotten Robert some illustration assignments for the Trib company; work intended to supplement the elusive income of a serious painter, but which, more often than not, Robert admitted with some shame, disappeared at one of his favorite downtown watering holes.

The clear-eyed couples moved on, needing to claim their rightful places in some horrible, vapid suburb, and the immigrants started moving in. Robert had nothing against them being foreign, indeed not. He found researching their presumptive histories a fascinating and worthy occupation. Especially since it seemed forsaking the devil’s tea left him with more time on his hands. Of course Aggie had taken their computer and laid claim to most of their library, but Robert held to the classically written volume anyhow; impressive, if musty, stacks piled up beside his armchair. Ancient Celtic Heroes had been helpful when the Drumgooles moved into the garden apartment; Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses (Georgioulis notwithstanding) was spot on in revealing timeless failings within human nature. Nothing contemporary (but then Robert was convinced nobody knew how to write anymore).

The problem was that these transplants were all so damn loud. Loud when they cooked, when they laughed, when they fought. Loud televisions. Loud lovemaking (just the men, he’d noted). He had painted many of them, in dignified postures, layered over old unsold canvases. But in the breathing world they only interfered with his meditations. They seemed deaf to the transcendent robinsong each morning. They interrupted with their pots and pans and yammering, his experiencing the iridescence of twilight, tearing into the expansiveness of his thoughts during his evening smoke.

He went to the refrigerator for some orange juice. Out the kitchen window he could see the woman Radha again, lecturing her son in their native tongue. Hindi? Urdu? In any case, nearing an octave above human tolerance. Her diatribe could be heard from within his third floor apartment. The sound reminded him of the grating, relentless, tiny machine gun fire scoldings of the wrens that darted into the knotholes of his youth in Indiana. The poor kid was seated on a folding chair beneath the string of undershirts. Their whiteness, in reflection, made narrow rivers in his neat black hair. Robert could tell this wasn’t his first rodeo, his face shut down, his thoughts no doubt elsewhere. He must be around ten, Robert guessed, probably wondering what his friends are up to, or fantasizing about how he’d like to remove his mother’s voice box.

“People of color!” It was his knee-jerk reaction. Then, reproaching the world as he often did, Christ in an elevator, we’re all people of color! He reckoned with indignation, the term insinuates “white” people lack color. As an artist, he did not lay down Titanium White and call it a day. He used greens and blues and mauves when mixing paint to capture a fair complexion. Black people! Brownpeople! He smiled derisively. Lazy misnomers. On canvas, he built those subjects layer upon gorgeous layer, using umber and sienna surely, but also plum, ochre, ultramarine blue, warm gray, even a shimmer or two of aqua or ivory. He thought it a pity—and an ignominious product of the world’s rush—that nobody seemed to take time to honor the amazing palette out there. Nature’s spectrum is a goddamned miracle, yet we idiots consistently miss it!

Years back, he’d done an impressionistic portrait of their little Pauline in gradations of the dusky purple he noticed beneath her huge eyes, under her chin, and along the side of her nose; a child made of shadows. It had grounded him, drawing or painting his daughter; she was his, no matter what hues he chose to use or omit. The things inside her, the light and the pain she was made of were the things he valued, what he connected to. Those are the things that people should attend to, if only they weren’t in such a goddamn hurry.

Radha’s lips were paling. Yet there she was, scolding away, a lecture on behavior it seemed, though Robert couldn’t make out any English words save a phrase sounding something like “street boys.” In contrast, the kid’s face was darkening. Tears boiled over and suddenly, defiantly, he tore off down the stairs, knocking over the chair. His mother leaned over the porch railing, her blue-black hair coming loose, and issued some sort of shrill warning in that up-down, run-on language of theirs. Robert could feel the slap within her words. Until recently he’d heard her address the child in a mellifluous tone, sounding to him much like a lullaby. Lately however, her voice had developed a sharpness. Didn’t she understand that boys need to be a little bad?

Radha let the screen door slam. He could still hear her accelerated speech as she entered her apartment, letting off steam. A moment later a man stepped out. Compact and well groomed, he was the color of bitter chocolate, Robert observed, heavy on the violet and burnt umber. Robert hadn’t really seen him before, Radha being the one most often outside. The man leaned out, over the railing, the whites of his eyes flashing as he summoned his boy with clipped authority, “Aarev!” He brandished the flat of his hand.

Robert decided he’d heard enough. This sort of thing tightened his jaw, reminded him too much of childhood years best forgotten; the disappointment he’d been to his own father, a cop and night watch supervisor at the university. That is, before his father drank himself to death. Robert didn’t need to go down that road…his nerves were already in a precarious condition. Heredity obviously stacked against him, the raw chaos of others’ lives was certainly not going to be helpful in his sobriety. He conjured what had, to him, become a mantra, Solveig’s words, walk away from bad intention. These two malignant nincompoops were probably just doing their lousy best to raise this kid in this godawful world. Still, Agatha would never have allowed the entire neighborhood to bear witness like this. And she’d certainly held Pauline to some lofty standards, the child growing unnaturally quiet and submissive.

Or maybe it had been his erratic behavior that had done that. In his absence or, more likely in the frightening face of his inebriation, she may have believed she existed as her mother’s only consolation. In any case, his little piccolo, an adult now, and faraway, had been absorbed into the ranks of the proper and compliant. And so these nincompoops would lose Aarev.

The boy could be a mischievous bundle, no doubt. Watching from his smoking spot on the landing, Robert had delighted in the half-baked pranks he came up with when his mother wasn’t watching, attempts to court the attentions of the neighborhood gang with whom he apparently wasn’t allowed to play. Sometimes Robert snuck a quick hand signal, an encouragement, and the boy’s face brightened. This little guy wanted street cred like the dickens. Though sympathetic, he had to agree with Radha here, that lot were a herd of pre-pubescent little shits with one thirteen-year old bad influence at the helm. There was something dreamy about Aarev. Robert caught it in the way the child hummed to himself, and paused coming up the back stairs after school, his eyes carefully following the sounds of those off at play, trying to figure out where the day’s gathering spot was. It evoked memories, Robert’s lonely boyhood. Centuries ago it seemed, he too had been his mother’s only child, skinny and wistful, ostracized, his artistic leanings willfully misjudged by his own father. He’d eventually earned the respect of his peers by one-upping them in the poor choice department. Easier once his dad had successfully potted himself.

Restless, Robert went to his books. Between a forgotten copy of Mother Indiaand a disintegrating paperback translation of the Bhagavad Gita, he was able to decipher the boy’s name. Aarev: Peaceful. Jesus in a cab.

He stood up from his armchair and tore off his reading glasses. He paced, lingering over some pictures of his long ago Paulina Piccolo. Conscience, resurrected, was pulling at him. He grabbed his cigarettes and scrounged matches from the front pocket of yesterday’s pants. He made sure he had an extra pencil and clean gum eraser in his flak jacket. To be sure, he’d much rather have been setting off on one of his blind adventures, travel mug of Jameson in hand. Diligence. Four o’clock, he reminded himself. With exasperated resolve he unwrapped a Lemonhead, opened the door and stepped out in search of the boy.

The alley, once paved, was all cracks now, fractured and uneven. Pebbles and fragmented glass ground to sparkle filled fissures and scattered its length. Dull green dumpsters loafed, wide-hipped and dented, along the back walls of all the buildings. It had become a dirty, desolate canyon in which, ironically, every aroma was captured, every conversation could be overheard, and echoing bedsprings betrayed the tossed and turning at night. He didn’t want to imagine his neighbors in bed. Aggie, on the other hand, he summoned to mind frequently (and torturously), as he did now for a streak of a moment. Young Agatha Holmes. The lustful little sprite had been intoxicating. God she could excite him back then—tease and then accommodate him, anywhere. During the feverish onset of their relationship they’d clasped each other in a theater dressing room, sopping and ecstatic, costumed, an irrepressible nun and priest. But his absences, lost in the drink, and the soul-sucking responsibilities he’d left her with, had served to cool things between them until, after a point, sex was only a concept they fought over.

These days he mostly thought about Solveig; her enormous hazel eyes, the subtle colors of a landscape, set into a face like a sunrise. Aggie’s face had been so different, fox shaped, pale, like the moon at night, her hair chopped and blackened and defying direction. Sol’s was a honey-brown tumble reliably falling out of tails or twists, an invitation. She was deliciously abundant. She was balm, as soulful and beckoning as music. Still, he’d never cross the line. She’d hardly fall for costume-love, or any of his old school seductions. He’d hazarded a flirtation once or twice, fortified by Jack Daniels, but held back. Beneath Solveig’s tough kindness, her unsparing honesty, was a pulsing resilience, an essential belief he couldn’t share or risk damaging. It seemed to him that addiction hadn’t quite toppled her pillars as it had his. That wholesome determination made her unattainable, and precious. He’d come to rely on her dependable rejection of his bullshit. Beyond her sponsorship, Sol was his friend, his Achelois, she who drives away pain.

In empty moments though, he couldn’t stop himself from the fantasy, now that he was sober, that she might come to him. He knew this was fairy dust. She was surely fond of him, but as a niece might be fond of a curmudgeonly uncle. At fifty-seven he was certainly old enough to be that. And bourbon hadn’t done his looks any favors. When he bothered to glance in the mirror, he met a ragged man, worn out and gray. A face deeply lined and veiny at the nose. Someone in need of help.

He slowed, hearing a cough echo down a shadowy gangway. Bending sideways, Robert cautiously peered into the vaguely urine-scented shaft. Sitting in the gloom, his knees drawn up tightly, was Aarev. His little arms were glistening wet, he’d been wiping his face with them. Even in the dim light Robert could discern the child’s thick eyelashes made blacker by tears. He cleared his throat, sending the boy’s head burrowing into his knees.

“My dear fellow,” Robert began. He knew he sounded like someone from another time and place, a better one. His intention. He got no response.

“I got pretty good at hiding when I was your age.” At this the boy looked up with one eye. Robert brought out a pencil, casually sliding it behind his ear. He listed for Aarev some of his more inspired hideouts. On days when teasing—and life—had seemed merciless, he admitted hiding inside his locker to avoid recess. “The locker vents were just at my eye level. I saw some pretty entertaining things from there.” He finished with a dance of the eyebrow.

Aarev whispered, “Like what?”

“Oh well, lots of things.” Robert chuckled, deliberately enticing his audience.

Aarev was hooked. Tell me.

“One particular day, I saw my teacher—a very strict disciplinarian, I might add—slip off her shoes and dance in her stockings down the hall with Mr.—the principal. They um—,” Robert thought better of going on.

Aarev shrugged, unimpressed. “My teacher dances all the time in class. And we do hip hop in Friday gym.”

Adjusting to these concepts, he scratched at the stubble on his chin. He searched for something meatier. “Well…I once got on a bus, didn’t know where in hell I was going.”

Silence. “Were you scared?”

“I was desperate, sir. Anxious to get away—my father was tough. Didn’t care for how I chose to spend my time. Mad as hell I didn’t want to play baseball like the other boys. I wanted to draw.” He tapped the cover of his sketch pad. “I stayed on that bus to the end of the line, then took another.”

Aarev’s brows lifted, then gathered. He was digesting this. It occurred to Robert he’d come off as endorsing such a flight. “But that I don’t recommend!” This lurched out in a gruffer voice than he’d intended.

Aarev shifted a preoccupied gaze out, toward the alleyway. Great, Robert thought, I’ve given the kid the notion to run away. He didn’t need that on his plate. It was trying enough to handle the damage he and booze had done to his own daughter. He was still figuring out how to make amends for managing to miss almost all her school events, the damn dances and award ceremonies; all the terrible words he’d inflicted upon her and her mother, spurting out uncontrolled, like diarrhea; his final act, wasted and untouchable, plowing into another car. He was haunted by the look of terror on her young face seeing him after the hospital, blackened and sutured and trembling in withdrawal. He couldn’t be responsible for this child.

“Don’t you do that, now,” Robert repeated, holding an earnest tone. “You know there are seedy sorts out there. Anyhow, best not to run from your problems.” (He didn’t miss the irony in this). “I know a better way to get yourself lost.” Beckoning, he drew the pencil from behind his ear and flipped open his pad. Robert’s head had always swum with characters on dangerous romantic missions. They trod the pathways of his mind, old time villains and displaced princesses, explorers, travelers on amethyst mountains, in magnificent bone-scattered caves, conquering treacherous seas, encountering (of course) the swarthy eye-patched and wooden-legged, those disenfranchised, misunderstood heroes. They were his fascinations, his companions, frequently finding their way into his artwork. Alcohol had only made it easier to go there. He glanced up from his paper, self-conscious over the small but noticeable tremor in the hand holding the pencil.

With his practiced eye, he sketched out a majestically turbaned boy riding on top of an elephant. He set the pair on a city street, a bus lumbering behind them. Aarev rearranged his limbs, rising, his curiosity drawing him nearer to where Robert was scribbling away, into the light, straining for a look. Whisking his 4B pencil back and forth, here and there, Robert added shading, then lowered the pad so the boy could see.

“Oh, man!” The child’s voice hadn’t dropped yet. “You can do that?”

Slowly, dramatically, Robert produced the other pencil, holding it out.

He was entranced, the poor little scab.

Robert felt a sudden bristling at the idea of committing to something beyond the moment. A failure at cooperation, it had taken him years to tolerate the dried-up losers club with equanimity. Eventually he’d reasoned that if AA could tolerate him, Robert Galen could force himself to reciprocate. He could see this little cartoon was being taken as some sort of an invitation. He hesitated. “We’ll see, my good man.”

Their shoes—his, desert boots he’d lovingly preserved since the 90’s, Aarev’s, checkered slip on sneakers—crunched the loose gravel in sync. They took time going back. Aarev was busy telling Robert that he’d actually never ridden an elephant, nor had his father or uncles; that in

school they’d had a big discussion about how those kinds of pictures are “assum-shins” and “stereo-tyfes.” This stopped Robert in his tracks. Discussions at school! Back in Indiana in his own prehistoric youth, he was told to memorize out of whitewashed books; expected to accept everything imparted by whatever old battle axe handed down the grades, stuff designed to turn children into little narrow minded agree-ers. It dawned on him how misled he’d been, how many false trails he’d followed. How absurdly rigid and out of step he’d become. Not so different from the rule-followers and conformists that gave him gas. He’d been wallowing in self-pity for so long, his whole life it seemed suddenly. Comparing himself to manufactured folk heroes! He’d gotten lazy, allowed his powers of observation to dull, his brain to shrink! 

Taking a deep bow, he offered this young man an apology. With ceremony he drew the sketchbook and pencil from their pockets. He got to work adding an abundance of shaggy fur to the elephant and lavishly arced its tusks, transforming the beast into a mastodon. He erased the turban and gave the image of the rider a three cornered hat with a fantastic plume and an eye patch.

He tore the picture out and handed it to Aarev, who giggled at first, then slowly looked up “You can give me lessons?”

Visited by memory; mornings when Pauline was very young, mornings he’d been too hungover to go outside and they’d drawn pictures together in shared silence, Robert found himself assenting. “You have to ask your parents.” He said, though hating the necessity, the dismal properness.

A light in the boy’s face dimmed. He paused. “Please. Wait?” The request must be as much about having backup as expedience, Robert thought, watching the boy climb the stairs. He checked his watch. It was approaching four o’clock.

Remaining at his post as promised, Robert waited, rubbing Solveig’s worry stone. As it warmed in his hand, he heard voices rise from Aarev’s apartment. This time the loudness didn’t annoy him, it concerned him. His own father, Supervisor Frank Galen of the bloodshot eyes and unforgiving hands, had doled out whippings, but had much preferred humiliation, calling him “Mona Lisa” in front of other kids. He realized he was clenching the worry stone, in his fist. Above, big voices overrode small. A dissonant wail followed by a door slamming, hard. Feeling the weapon in his hand, Robert took aim. The tiny missile, launched impulsively, missed the window and dropped tick-click to the pavement.

Solveig’s words rose like a flock of birds. Walk away from bad intention.

As heinous as this situation was, was he really anyone to judge? After all, he had hurt his own child, badly, irrevocably, if not with his hand, certainly with his own ogre-isms and excuses. The blunt force of the voices upstairs was tearing open old wounds. All the painful places inside that alcohol had scabbed over.

Grabbing the fallen piece of jade, he swiftly took the old gray staircase. He thought or could imagine, mournful sounds muffled within the apartment. Boldly, he rapped the stone against the door. The forcefulness created an echo in the alley. Inside, things got quiet.

Radha came, but kept the screen door latched between them. Her eyes were wide, expression tight. Robert exhaled and forced a smile. “Hello…Radha…”

“Mrs. Bedi. My husband isn’t here.” They both knew she was lying.

“I think you may have seen me before,” he went on, certain she too knew his lie, the real reason for his visit. She nodded. Clearing his throat of its usual gravel, he said, “I like to think of myself as an explorer of man.” She stared uncomfortably. “I have been thinking I’d like to learn

about your culture. I’ve been reading, but my books are quite a bit out of date. I’m out of date,” he smiled ruefully. Radha looked confused, impatient. He got to it. “I had a conversation with your son about some important things he’s been learning in school…left me wondering if I might continue that discussion—here, on your porch, of course.” He motioned to the decrepit folding chair. A strategic touch, he thought, especially in light of his having materialized, a stranger uninvited, outside their door.

“I’m sorry, this is not a good—”

“Your boy Aarev…an excellent young man…could share with me what he is learning in school, and in exchange perhaps I could give him some…art lessons? I was an artist, you see. I’m, well, I’m retired now.”

Through the crumby screen he saw Mr. Bedi appear, lurking dusty purple behind her. In a blur of emotion the man was indistinguishable from his own father and he resisted an urge to call the asshole out. Instead, Robert girded himself, and turned up his volume, making certain he could be clearly heard inside. “Your child is bright. He seems to take school seriously. I’m afraid my schooling left much to be desired.”

Bedi shouldered his way forward then, holding up the drawing. Beneath his bristling, Robert could recognize some of his own existential burdens mirrored in the man’s deeply creased forehead. “You gave this to my son? He doesn’t know you. What do you want from him?”

There was some explaining to be done, Robert owed Bedi that much. He hated that the world had become so ready to excavate a nugget of ugliness from an offering of fellowship. Then again, why in Lucifer’s name shouldn’t people be paranoid? Look at how pervasive rank behavior had become, and how boldly committed. With a friendly air (that required a little effort), he recounted how he happened to run across the child seeming in low spirits. The drawing, Robert explained, had been an effort to cheer him up, coax him home. He wasn’t sure Bedi was buying it. It was clear he’d never be able to share his portraits of Radha with the man.

“And why do you care?” Bedi glowered, puffing up his chest.

He decided to ignore the man’s bluster and addressed himself to her. “I’m not much, but I once was a—” He couldn’t cop to it: a painter. “I made my living doing illustration.” The boy was nowhere to be seen. Shut in his room, Robert assumed, silently fuming at the idea.

The man began to examine Robert as one might an anonymous letter. “This is not a usual thing…”

Radha spoke to her husband in that mellow tone Robert had heard her use in the past. With a gesture of her hand she excused them both for a moment, backing her husband into their apartment and closing the door. Robert was left hanging with the undershirts. Shaking and a bit damp under the collar, he craved a smoke like a bear craves salmon, but resisted diving for the pack. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked up into the clouds. He imagined Sol’s hair, true gold under the gym lights. Half the time that was what got him through the damn meetings, the golden mayhem of her hair. And her laugh, a deep cough and twinkle of the eye. How she owned her alcoholism as if it was a bad knee, as if it was something she’d brought upon herself, trying too many impossible leaps.

It was four o’clock when they returned. Aarev was with them. He seemed smaller, subdued, didn’t say a word. His deep creature-brown eyes riveted to Robert’s while his mother grasped his shoulders with nervous, gold ringed fingers. Her hair was smoothed again and her smile was trained. The man of the house did the talking. He came out onto the porch. Robert extended a hand, but Bedi, obviously still suspicious, anchored his on his hips.

“I will agree to this. Aarev would like to learn how to draw. This is better for him than running in the streets.” His expression was stern, wary.

Radha spoke softly then. “He’s a good boy.” She ran a hand over Aarev’s hair and the boy, embarrassed, tilted his head away, touching his palm against the frayed screen.

At the sound of his wife’s voice the furrow in Bedi’s brow eased. He gave a nod. “My wife and I will share with you about our culture, if you are interested.”

***

Robert had been stewing. It was bothering him to be collaborating in any way with a parent who seemed amenable to raising a hand against a child. As a survivor of it himself, bullying topped any disdain he might have for obligation. Something new was willing him forward though, something he was uncovering or recovering. He wasn’t clear on it all yet, just that he’d allow himself no escape hatches. Lessons were to begin Saturday and would include dinner with the family. Robert had feigned delight when agreeing to the terms. It seemed requisite to live a life with other people in it, one has to abide by conditions and learn from them, to blend.

On Saturday he collected an assortment of his old colored pencils, in various states of diminishment, but usable, and purchased a large pad of newsprint and a gum eraser wrapped in glistening plastic. He gathered together a small portfolio of his own work…for legitimacy’s sake. Wisely omitted were the pastels of Princess Devi, vision beneath the laundry lines.

Solveig had convinced him to share this development in his life with the dried-up losers. Wanting to please her, he’d stood before them at last night’s meeting (having finally made it there), fighting past his fear, then furious at their applause, the silly sea of nodding heads. For Chrissake, he hadn’t even done anything yet, let alone succeeded at it. “Yes you have, Robby,” Solveig smiled. “You have.” Traversing a landscape, not of magical vistas and soon to be rescued princesses, but one pitted with injury and regret, inhabited by the unalike as well as the painfully relatable, he’d need to carry her belief in a pocket inside himself—next to those that embrace his faraway Pauline, and this boy, Aarev. Another patch to sew upon his deep blue heart.

He’d taken himself to the library. Aware that Mother India was most certainly not an accurate, full account of a people, just one long-outdated perspective, he needed an infusion. He had to come at this thing with an open admission of his complacency, with humility, Christ knows, and with respect; a starting place. He made certain then, on Saturday, that he’d showered and shaved, his jacket pockets emptied of cigarettes and equipped with hard candy. Antacid would be practical (for god knows they spice up their food). Battling an epic battle against old demons, he toiled through the damn Serenity Prayer. He didn’t want to screw this up.

Now, in the narrow hallway leading from the stillness of his bedroom, he stared into his hand, ruminating on the green clouds captured within the dint of the smooth jade worry stone. He slipped that into its place as well. He would give it to Aarev. The boy could use it, the strange, warm, secret strength it carried.

In "Exhaling Carefully," an antisocial middle-aged has-been artist and recovering alcoholic has an epiphany while trying to help the young son of immigrant neighbors with a personal problem, and finds that he is the one who benefits most from their arrangement.