The furniture I’d ordered from Ikea hadn’t come yet, but I could start painting without it. All I needed was an easel, paint and canvasses. I was mixing cadmium yellow, cadmium yellow light and a pinch of burnt umber into shades of gold in the soft north light of the studio ten minutes after the delivery truck pulled away. In the days that followed, my life gradually defined itself the natural way a stream finds its own path down a hillside. Bobo and I developed a routine. She had breakfast set out on the table every morning when I went downstairs. Nothing elaborate. Grape Nuts in a bowl, two teaspoons of sugar on the top, and a glass of orange juice. She called my choice of breakfast cereal “gravel” when she was in a good mood and “kitty litter” the rest of the time. Though she literally got up with the chickens, she usually waited to eat with me, gumming her Rice Krispies sans and downing black coffee the consistency of road tar.
What do You think about The Memory Closet: A Novel?
