“Well—I believe back then I claimed that you were quite the little masterpiece, am I no’ right? I’m saying that any lack of progress is not due to any lack of encouragement on my part, now, is it, now, Owl?” “No, ma’am,” I agreed, but explained that I’d only just turned fourteen in June and, to be fair, the week before I’d made—what?—$457.30 from my painting. “Now he’s onto the money of it, is he? Because we lost everything, this generation thinks it’s going to show up in the cash drawer or none of it is real, am I right? Don’t you dare bring money into this. You have no idea. Fourteen might sound young to some, but you’re presently a-speaking to the person who’s been expecting something from you, and I mean daily. Now in he waltzes with cash receipts. We needed art, you little ribbon clerk!”

I knew this was meant as punishment. But even at that age, even considering the fortune my earnings seemed—I saw that no amount would ever make it up to her; I mean, the debits. I noticed with horror that her nightdress was misbuttoned, that she wore no underclothes. And just by sitting here, I’d have to see her flat tire of one breast and some portion of a nipple gray-brown and cracked-looking. She didn’t know. She was pert and frazzled and she kept smiling. “Good you’ve come,” she said now. I wanted to rescue her from this narrow room. I wanted to rescue her from History—so bad at assigning, so good at misplacing. Such a slob, really, History. Muriel’s grandfather was asked to give crippling amounts (irretrievable loans) to the porky future King of England. Finders keepers, losers weepers…. Was there not some way to help her, even now? Some intuitive science, some practical bill-collector’s art? The more cross she acted toward me, the more I felt I knew her, and the more unworthy I felt. I sat here, winded and confused, so glad they’d let me come alone. Nobody need ever know she’d scolded me like that for being too slow, for my mentioning the money. Nobody would know. She least of all. But, I didn’t count on my own habitual remembering, a gift so enhanced in me by Muriel Evangeline Kilkairn Fraser.

“Was I wrong?” she asked, half aware she might’ve bruised my feelings. “No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t know how to do portraits yet. They’re harder than people realize. Portraits matter more than people think, I think.”

She nodded, but toward the air vent.