A Nest of Nightmares

‘Would you like some wine?’ Sara asked.

‘Please.’ Mary Alice slumped into the old armchair and continued to study the canvas. ‘I’ve never seen you do anything remotely like this. The White Goddess, right?’

In the kitchen, pouring wine, Sara frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ She brought two glasses into the family room.

‘Well, it reminds me of Welsh mythology,’ Mary Alice said, accepting her wine. ‘Thanks. You know, the pig, the bird, the hawthorn bush. The hooded figure would be Cerridwen – white goddess of death and creation.’

Sara shivered and looked around. It was as if a door had been opened and shut quickly, letting in a chill wind.

‘I don’t know about any of that,’ Sara said. ‘I never heard of . . . what’s-her-name. But I had a dream about this terrifying white figure, and then I saw this huge pig across the lake. I just . . . they fit together into a painting, somehow. The bird’s just there to balance out the composition.’

‘A dream,’ said Mary Alice. She glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘I suppose you don’t have to know what a symbol means, to pick up on it.’

Sara also stood. ‘Look, why don’t you and the kids stay for dinner? It’s just spaghetti, but there’s lots of it.’

‘Thanks, but Bill’s expecting me back. He hates having to fend for himself.’

‘Some other time, then,’ Sara said, feeling oddly bereft. She wanted adult conversation, adult companionship. It had been so long since she had eaten a leisurely meal with other adults.

Mary Alice touched Sara’s arm and said, ‘You’ll have to come over for dinner some night soon – a late meal, after the kids have been put to bed. There’s a friend of Bill’s from the university that I’ve been wanting you to meet, and I could cook something really elaborate and make a party of it.’

‘That sounds marvellous,’ Sara said. She glanced at the painting again, then away, oddly disturbed. ‘You know, I had no problems with this painting. I never had to stop and think, and I’ve never worked so fast and surely in my life. It was odd, coming right after so much discouragement. For months I haven’t been able to finish anything I liked.’

‘The muse takes her own time,’ Mary Alice said. ‘She’s the White Goddess, too, you know – at least for poets.’ She raised her voice to call her children.

Company gone, Michael and Melanie buzzed around Sara, tugging at her arms and reciting unintelligible stories about the adventures of the day. They were tired and hungry but keyed up to such a pitch by the events of the day that Sara knew she would have a hard time calming them. She put her completed but still wet painting back in her bedroom, out of reach of flailing arms and flying toys, and resigned herself to being a mother again.

On Sunday morning Sara rose even before the children. She felt as if she’d been in hibernation for the past forty-­eight hours, dozing as she tended her children, cleaned the house, and ran errands, and only now was she awake again.

In a few hours the children’s father would come for them and Sara would be free to paint and live her own life until Monday morning. She had found a few moments to sketch, and she was bursting with the urge to take up brush and paints and turn her grey preliminaries into colour.

Not even pausing for her usual cup of tea, Sara pulled on a bathing suit and rushed outside. The air was a blessing on her bare skin and smelled of honeysuckle. The grass was cool and slippery beneath her feet and there was a special taste in the air that exhilarated her. She began to run, her thoughts streaming out behind her until she knew nothing but sensation.

She plunged into the water as she had plunged into the morning and began swimming vigorously toward the other shore. She was panting so hard she felt dizzy when she arrived, but she grinned with delight.

‘Come on out, oh Pig or Ghost or whatever you are!’ she called as she walked ashore. ‘I’m not afraid of you – show yourself!’

She began to shake herself like a dog, simply to feel the droplets of water flying off her. Then, somehow, she was dancing: a wild, primitive, arm-waving dance.

Finally, tired, she dropped to the rocky beach and rested. She gazed northward to where the narrow lake began to widen. Then she looked across the short stretch of water to her own house and to the others like it which dotted the shore. This early on a Sunday all was still and quiet.

Sara drank it all in: the sun, the clean, warm air with the scent of cedar in it, the songs of the birds, the solitude. Everything was as it should be.

She was cheerful when she returned, telling the kids funny stories and making blueberry-and-banana pancakes for breakfast. It was a special morning; even the children felt it.

‘You’re our good mommy, aren’t you?’ said Melanie, hugging Sara’s bare legs.

‘Of course I am, sweetie.’ She put the butter and syrup on the table and dropped a kiss on her daughter’s head.

Feeling the promise in the air, Michael said, ‘Could we maybe rent a sailboat and go sailing today like you said maybe we could someday?’