A Picture Full of Life

By Rosemarie DiCristo

Richard Mohr stood outside his sister’s room for a full minute, eyes shut tight, not wanting to enter. Then, taking a deep breath, he plunged in.

“You’re late, you little stink.”

Kimberly-Anne’s eyes were somehow sharper than her words: a scowling blue, like chips cleaved off a glacier.

“Five minutes.” Richard’s tone was gentler than his thoughts because after three years of visiting her in the nursing home, he’d become a master at ignoring his sister’s sniping. Mostly.

“Six, you friggin’ stink. And what’s your excuse this time?” Kimberly-Anne’s voice, harsh and grating even when they were kids, was now, always, a screech. But the silly euphemisms? Stink? Friggin’? That’s because Kimberly-Anne Mohr always, even now, followed their mom’s teaching to never, ever cuss.

Nasty. Vicious. Selfish. Also since they were kids. Crud, she’d been born a teenaged-hormonal, psycho-paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, hypochondriac—and got worse with each passing year. Whereas Richard’s wife Pauline was beautiful, gentle, kind, considerate…

“Your excuse?”

Richard pressed his lips together, then said, deceptively calm, “The downpour, maybe? Not being able to catch a cab, maybe?”

Kimberly-Anne snorted. “Next time there’s a downpour, stink, leave early. You know how much I need you.”

Really? After three years bedridden with absolutely no improvement, after three years of “You little stink” and not one whisper of love or gratitude that he was there—after three years of the same thing, every single visit…

Nope. Not going there.

“How you feeling, Kim?”

“How do you think?” She shoved her straggly blond hair out of her eyes with a claw-like hand. “I can’t walk. They bring my stinking-lousy food late, if at all. I could die before they bring fresh water, I can’t pee, I’m constipated…”

Same old, same old. Richard sighed. “You could’ve walked, if you’d done your therapy from day one, but you insisted Lyme disease made your legs lame—”

“It did!”

“That’s a pitcher of ice water there on your tray. I saw them taking your food away—uneaten—as I got off the elevator—”

“Liar!”

Staring at the linoleum, Richard said, for the umpteenth time, “You refuse to wash your hair. You look like a witch. You never leave your room, talk to no one but me… Why? The doctor says your vital signs are perfect. There is nothing wrong with you except you, Kimberly.”

She smacked her fist on the tray, splattering water. “Get out! Get out of my room. And don’t come back.”

“I won’t.”

But Richard would. He always did. At first, it was twisted family loyalty. Today, it was something else.

***

Pauline’s room was on another floor because she’d been in a coma for eight months, ever since the accident. Drunk driver who, of course, survived without a scratch.

Richard watched her with a love so deep, he wondered why it didn’t light up the room like a starburst. Pauline’s sleek, dark hair and smooth skin were perfect. Still, now, after all these months, her gentle face, beautiful… If she could open her eyes, they’d be soft brown, not those iceberg shards his sister used to glare at him.

But of course, Pauline couldn’t open her eyes, or move, or do anything.

Meanwhile, Kimberly-Anne could do it all but wouldn’t.

Why did she have life while Pauline had nothing?

“Not fair, is it?” Doctor Gray stopped by like he always did when Richard was in Pauline’s room.

“No, Dorian. It’s not.”

“Have you thought about what I suggested?”

Dorian Gray was Richard’s father’s age. Or was it his grandfather’s? Richard had known him so long, ever since Richard was a child, that he forgot the exact details.

Richard exhaled. “Yes, I thought about it. And I’m in. All I need is his address.”

***

Basil Hallward lived in a seedy part of the city, but Richard didn’t care. He wanted one thing only from him and explained it as simply as he could.

Basil shook his head. “No, sir, no need. Dorian told me everything.”

“Then you can do it?”

“I’ll start tonight. I just need photos—”

Richard handed both to Basil.

There was a knowing twinkle in Basil’s eyes. “Care to watch?”

“Definitely.”

***

Basil painted the picture of Richard’s wife first, gloriously capturing Pauline’s gentle beauty, her full lips, her lustrous skin, and her huge brown eyes, laughing as they always did, before the accident.

Tears blurred Richard’s vision, and he huffed out his breath. “You’ve made her precisely as she really is. Dorian was right—you do have a gift.”

Basil’s smile twisted as, with deft brushstrokes, he painted a picture of Kimberly-Anne atop the one of Pauline. Somehow, Kimberly-Anne looked even more hideous than she really was, all jagged facial features—chin and nose and cheekbones—hair wild and spiky, and the eyes. Those cruel, ice-chip blue eyes…

Richard grimaced. “That’s a little too life-like for me.”

“Just keep watching.”

Basil took the horrific picture of Kimberly-Anne and brushed those ice-chip eyes into the canvas so they disappeared, turning them gentle, laughing brown. He just as easily transformed the harshness of Kimberly-Anne into the gentleness of Pauline. The one picture dissolved into the other until only Pauline’s likeness was left, sweet and beautiful. And alive.

***

The phone call came a half hour after Richard returned home.

“I’m afraid we have bad news for you, Mr. Mohr,” the administrator told him. “Your sister passed an hour ago.”

Richard made the proper sounds of sorrow.

“But it’s a miracle, sir. Your wife has come out of her coma. She’s conscious and speaking.”

Richard burst through the hospital doors in fifteen minutes. Bearing a huge bouquet of flowers, he rushed into his wife’s room. “Darling!”

Pauline turned to him, but her eyes were as sharp as glaciers.

“It’s about time, you little stink. And why the freak are you calling me darling?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Playing God doesn’t work out well, does it? It didn’t work for Dorian Gray or Richard Mohr or countless others. What does work? Havok stories! They are fantastic, and Rosemarie DiCristo is delighted to once more have her flash fiction included as a part of Havok’s story collections.

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