She’d spent the whole day cleaning up her apartment, even dusting the top of the painting that hung on the living room wall, the one that depicted the back of a girl’s head as she looked out through the half-open window and into the yard. It was her first effort using egg tempera, the view from her old bedroom, and it wasn’t bad, especially the perspective and the use of shadows. At one point, Judy had thought it would be her calling, to be a painter of portraits and landscapes and whatever else. To the right of the painting was the door to her closet, and behind that door, languishing in darkness, was an easel, a palette, and half-squeezed tubes of paint in a wooden rack. All she had to do was get them out, set herself up, and start again. Maybe this weekend she’d do it. Probably not. The last time the living room looked this nice was probably the week after she and Brian had moved in, three years ago. The last item she’d unwrapped from the last box was the white ceramic vase that had been handed down to her from three generations of her mother’s side of the family.
