Duma Key

Sometimes it seems to me that my clearest memories of Duma Key are of orange evening skies that bleed at the bottom and fade away at the top, green to black. When I woke up that evening, another day was going down in glory. I thudded into the big main room on my crutch, stiff and wincing (the first ten minutes were always the worst). The door to Ilse's room was standing open and her bed was empty.

"Ilse?" I called.

For a moment there was no answer. Then she called back from upstairs. "Daddy? Holy crow, did you do this? When did you do this?"

All thought of aches and pains left me. I got up to Little Pink as fast as I could, trying to remember what I'd drawn. Whatever it was, I hadn't made any effort to put it out of sight. Suppose it was something really awful? Suppose I'd gotten the bright idea of doing a crucifixion caricature, with The Gospel Hummingbird riding the cross?

Ilse was standing in front of my easel, and I couldn't see what was there. Her body was blocking it out. Even if she'd been standing to one side, the only light in the room was coming from that bloody sunset; the pad would have been nothing but a black rectangle against the glare.

I flicked on the lights, praying I hadn't done something to distress the daughter who had come all this way to make sure I was okay. From her voice, I hadn't been able to tell. "Ilse?"

She turned to me, her face bemused rather than angry. "When did you do this one?"

"Well..." I said. "Stand aside a little, would you?"

"Is your memory playing tricks again? It is, isn't it?"

"No," I said. "Well, yeah." It was the beach outside the window, I could tell that much but no more. "As soon as I see it, I'm sure I'll... step aside, honey, you make a better door than a window."

"Even though I am a pain, right?" She laughed. Rarely had the sound of laughter so relieved me. Whatever she'd found on the easel, it hadn't made her mad, and my stomach dropped back where it belonged. If she wasn't angry, the risk that I might get angry and spoil what had, on measure, been a pretty damned good visit went down.

She stepped to the left, and I saw what I'd drawn while in my dazed, pre-nap state. Technically, it was probably the best thing I'd done since my first tentative pen-and-inks on Lake Phalen, but I thought it was no wonder she was puzzled. I was puzzled, too.

It was the section of beach I could see through Little Pink's nearly wall-length window. The casual scribble of light on the water, achieved with a shade the Venus Company called Chrome, marked the time as early morning. A little girl in a tennis dress stood at the center of the picture. Her back was turned, but her red hair was a dead giveaway: she was Reba, my little love, that girlfriend from my other life. The figure was poorly executed, but you somehow knew that was on purpose, that she wasn't a real little girl at all, only a dream figure in a dream landscape.

All around her feet, lying in the sand, were bright green tennis balls.

Others floated shoreward on the mild waves.

"When did you do it?" Ilse was still smiling - almost laughing. "And what the heck does it mean?"

"Do you like it?" I asked. Because I didn't like it. The tennis balls were the wrong color because I hadn't had the right shade of green, but that wasn't why; I hated it because it felt all wrong. It felt like heartbreak.

"I love it!" she said, and then did laugh. "C'mon, when did you do it? Give."

"While you were sleeping. I went to lie down, but I felt queasy again, so I thought I better stay vertical for awhile. I decided to draw a little, see if things would settle. I didn't realize I had that thing in my hand until I got up here." I pointed to Reba, sitting propped against the window with her stuffed legs sticking out.

"That's the doll you're supposed to yell at when you forget things, right?"

"Something like that. Anyway, I drew the picture. It took maybe an hour. By the time I was finished, I felt better." Although I remembered very little about making the drawing, I remembered enough to know this story was a lie. "Then I lay down and took a nap. End of story."

"Can I have it?"

I felt a surge of dismay, but couldn't think of a way to say no that wouldn't hurt her feelings or sound crazy. "If you really want it. It's not much, though. Wouldn't you rather have one of Freemantle's Famous Sunsets? Or the mailbox with the rocking horse! I could-"

"This is the one I want," she said. "It's funny and sweet and even a little... I don't know... ominous. You look at her one way and you say, 'A doll.' You look another way and say, 'No, a little girl - after all, isn't she standing up?' It's amazing how much you've learned to do with colored pencils." She nodded decisively. "This is the one I want. Only you have to name it. Artists have to name their pictures."

"I agree, but I wouldn't have any idea-"

"Come on, come on, no weaseling. First thing to pop into your mind."

I said, "All right - The End of the Game."