Keepsake, by Mikki Aronoff

Variation on a Lighthouse Theme IV, by Ida O’Keeffe (USA) ca. 1931-32

​Keepsake
 
“So much cobalt?” Sarah’s tongue, accusing. Shrill. Her pointing finger, a skewer, a fury. A mumble of agreement, habitual, tumbles from Beth’s lips as she grips the easel, dizzy from the censure and scorch. Beth thinks of the time Sarah mocked the bluebird picture she drew for their father when she was so young. She’d withered under Sarah’s scorn then, too, but their father scolded Sarah, framed Beth’s artwork, and placed it high on a bookshelf in his study.
 
It’s been years since Beth first picked up her older sister’s sable-tipped brush, dipped it in blue: a child’s adulation. She wants to whip ’round, nip off the tip of Sarah’s digit. If Sarah dies first, she’ll shave off a slice, encase it like the mustard seed in the glass pendant their mother wore, a gift from their father who’d faded away long before Beth could complete his portrait. A sliver of Sarah’s skin would make a fine keepsake, like the locket filled with ferret fur Sarah keeps wrapped in lace in the back of her dresser and flaunts at her exhibition openings.
 
That night, Beth dreams of shame drooling on her painting like sludge. Her hands corkscrew and tighten around her brushes as indigo cracks open the studio door, crooks his bony finger at her, tangos towards her, draws her in. 
 
The next morning, Beth arises early, adjusts her father’s unfinished portrait on her table-top easel. She squeezes out the last dried bits of paint from crumpled tubes, grabs the turpentine. She takes a deep breath and applies herself to the task of thinning Berlin blue with a slight tinge of ultramarine to fill in his eyes, now like blue copper ore, now like the flax flower. Like hers. 

Mikki Aronoff
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Mikki Aronoff lives in New Mexico, where she writes tiny stories and advocates for animals. She has stories in Best Microfiction 2024 and in Best Small Fictions 2024.