All the Waters of the Earth

Chapter 31: Negative Space

The next weekend, Roberto went to his dad's, and Jake and I attended the final art class of this session, as student, and model, respectively. At the end of the class, after I had dressed, I walked over to him at the easel, and he showed me what he had drawn. With intricate, exquisite detail, he had captured my body on paper: the nip in my waist, the strength of my legs, the perk of my nipples. Using a single line, he had drawn my cheekbone, and with another, the under edge of my lower lip.

But it was also the part of the paper where he hadn't drawn anything that mattered. I had heard the professor talking about negative space from time to time: the idea that the seemingly empty visual space around an object, not necessarily the object itself, could be drawn. Rather than fill up the paper with clutter, Jake drew the essentials, just what was needed to convey the subject — namely, me — and no more. This left a lot of blank paper, but it felt vibrant and alive, not barren.

He needed negative space in his life, as well. We all did. We often went through life trying to fill it up: with work, with activity, with noise, with busy-ness. And while all of those things could be fun — I loved the activity — we also needed quiet time to write, quiet time to create, and quiet time to live our lives. I thought that's what Jake had been doing: burying himself in his work and his busy-ness, so that he didn't have to really live. And who could blame him for being scared to live his life? His childhood had been super scary. For so long, he had avoided the fear, and side-stepped his life, by filling it up with work. This way, there had been no room for living; he slept, ate, exercised, cleaned up, and went to work, and filled up all of the space on the paper of his life.

Now, finally, he was starting to live, to not pack so much work into his days, and to instead, perhaps trust that it was going to be okay to be unscheduled. That was how I operated — I wrote, normally when Rob was in school, but not on any particularly rigid schedule. With pleasure, I watched him start to get that roominess in his days, paring down his list of things to do to what mattered, and allowing for some unscheduled time on his calendar, so that he could live his life for real. So far, so good with keeping his vow to not work so much. He had started coming home at six or seven o'clock, sometimes earlier. Since previously, he had often come back at nine o'clock, this was major progress. I didn't say a word about it. Inside, though, I was dancing.

Things were looking brighter for me, too. Amelia had called me after New Year's and told me that the court had ordered Carlos and me to a family law mediation process. This was where we met with a mediator and tried to negotiate a child custody settlement out of court. While I didn't want to talk to Carlos, Amelia assured me that I would be in a separate room and I didn't have to see him. Fine. That wasn't for a few weeks, though. If we didn't resolve it, then we would have a full-scale hearing. I was worried about the cost of all of this, and I hated having the uncertainty stress me out. So I would go to the mediation.

He folded up his notepad and packed up his art supplies, and then, still perched on his artist's stool, he pulled me to him by my waist, and I stood between his muscular, jean-clad thighs. Then he said, regarding me carefully, "I am so glad that I took this class. So fucking happy." And he smiled at me, going in and kissing me on the nose.

It was important that he was smiling. While his dad was still in the hospital, he was recovering. I knew that Jake went there at lunch time every day. But he was at my house for dinner. And we were starting to call my house his home.

And I had also bitten the bullet. After I kissed him in front of Rob on Christmas, and since he was around so much, and Rob knew him and liked him, he had taken to spending the night at my house. The mom part of me wondered if I was going too fast with it, but it felt right; Rob knew he was my boyfriend. I still worried about how Rob would take it if Jake and I broke up; his move was still imminent, as well, and Rob knew this. I thought that my kid could handle Jake not being our neighbor, so I hoped that him staying with us for now would be okay. Second-guessing myself as a parent was second nature.

We left the art class and, instead of Jake going to work, as was his normal habit, we went to the hospital to check on his dad. After assuring himself that his dad was stable, and recovering, we left and went to lunch. Then he looked at me, an unusual, impish, conspiratorial look on his face.

"Let's go do something."

"Sure," I agreed easily. Spontaneity was a good thing, and something that I didn't often get as a single mom. The freedom that I had while Rob was with his dad was something that I could be grateful for, even if I had my problems with Carlos. I was still tired from being sick, but I was happy to go and play.

"I feel like I'm playing hooky. Yes, I know it's Saturday," he said in response to the dude-are-you-serious? look on my face, "but let's go down to L.A. and go to the Getty."

Okay. The huge Getty Museum perched on a hilltop, surveying all of Los Angeles, its fancy Italian stone warming the modern edifice. We drove to Los Angeles, parked in the underground parking lot, and took the monorail up to the Getty. A free museum, we wandered around the galleries, looking first at the illuminated manuscripts. I marveled at how someone took that much time to decorate a single page of writing. When I wrote, I whipped through pages on my computer very quickly. Each page of an ancient, hand-written manuscript, decorated with ornate designs, must have taken days.

As we walked through the galleries, I noticed the reverent way that Jake looked at art. He stopped, giving each piece attention, commenting on styles, subjects, artists, compositions. He was in his element. I had never known it, but I enjoyed seeing it. My style at a museum was more to go through quickly, and head to the gift shop. But I loved taking this slower pace with him. It was a form of negative space in our lives. Recharging at a museum for inspiration.

He got naughty too, when we were looking at the nudes — women with glorious curves lolling on chaise lounges, or in classical poses. "We need to get you back home, don't we?" he said in my ear, coming up behind me.

"Why is that?"

"I think I need to see you in these positions," he continued.

"Oh yeah?"

"You want more of what I'm thinking?" I nodded. "I want you bent over my bed, Lucy, that glorious ass all mine. I want you on top, riding me. It's a great view, I have to say."

Uh huh. That. We could do that.

He continued. "Think your parents will watch Rob next weekend?"

"Yeah, they don't mind."

"Then we're going to go away. I'll take you up on my Christmas present."

Yay.