Chapter 1 – Surrealism
Chapter 2 – Rescued
Chapter 3 – Fusion
Chapter 4 – Tribulations and Trials
Chapter 5 – Discovery
Chapter 6 – Answering the Question
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This is a completed 3-part story. All three parts are being submitted at the same time and should all post within a day or so of each other. (I’ll never post a multipart story that isn’t completely finished.)
Author’s note: Skip past the next set of asterisks if you don’t want to know any more about this story.
This story is going to dance around mental illness a bit. If that subject bothers you or you simply aren’t in the mood for that, then you probably don’t want to read this.
Also, most people refer to male and female peafowl as ‘peacocks.’ That isn’t correct. Peacocks are the males. Peahens are the females, and collectively they are referred to as ‘peafowl.’ Clearly there will be some type of peafowl in this story.
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Chapter 1 – SURREALISM
“Are you my husband?”
“No, ma’am. I’m Janie’s husband.” Scott Parker stood to get the photo from her dresser inside her small apartment. He had been visiting with Amanda Winter for nearly an hour. “See? This is me and Janie at our wedding. That’s you and your late husband, Franklin.”
“Oh! I remember Janie. She’s my daughter.”
“She’s your step-daughter.”
Mrs. Winter asked, “You said, my late husband?”
“Yes, ma’am. He was a fine man and a good husband. You picked a good one when you chose him.”
She smiled at Scott. “I’m glad Janie has you. Did you know I have another daughter?”
“I do. Her name is Kathleen. She’s almost as pretty as you.”
“I miss her.”
Scott said, “Janie and I are going to bring her to see you real soon.”
“I hope so. Do you like my painting?”
In the corner of her room was her most recent painting. Even though her early-onset Alzheimer’s hid most of her memory most of the time, she had always hallucinated since before Scott first met her nearly eight years ago. Her doctors had never been able to categorize it well enough to treat it correctly with prescriptions. They had tried many different combinations. Many left her too agitated and nervous to be able to deal well with anyone, while others left her in such a fog that she couldn’t function.
Her hallucinations, as she had told him, would come for several to a dozen minutes at a time, sometimes only once a week or sometimes up to three times a day, and varied between wonderful and horrific. She had told him that many of her paintings had been based on her ‘visions.’ An artist and art teacher by trade, she had amazing talent, and had incorporated her visions into her paintings, which at times seemed to be a mix of Salvador Dali and something from a Monet painting, but always with a lot of flowers, which she liked. She did a few portraits over the years and, recently, some from memory, which was amazing given her condition.
Her current painting, oil on canvas, was a simple landscape, with gently rolling hills in the background. The grasses were purple with daffodils mixed in, and the sky was hot pink. Maybe it was pink from an unseen rising or setting sun, but given the purple grass, orange tree trunks, and aqua-colored leaves, he doubted that. In the foreground were two women wearing peafowl dresses with a full plume of feathers erect and spread behind them as they walked. The faces of and figures on the two women clearly belonged to Janie and Kathleen.
He knew that as soon as Janie saw her and Kathleen in the picture, she would have it framed and find someplace to hang it in their house along with at least ten other paintings Amanda had painted. Scott thought it so terribly sad that she could paint their faces perfectly from memory but could rarely remember Janie’s name.
Scott said, “I think that may be your best one yet.” While a beautiful piece, no way was it her best, but he tried to make her happy when he visited her. She had lost some of the finer touches and shadings that she once included, but after a lifetime of painting, she was still extremely skillful.
Having painted all her adult life, there was no telling how many paintings she had given away over the years. He imagined them scattered all over Georgia and the southeast. Scott and Janie had several dozen from the years she had lived with them after Mr. Winter passed away. He thought many of them were quite good to exceptional, but he was no art critic.
She said, “Did you know the Queen of Spain has one of my paintings?”
He smiled at her. After a lifetime of ‘visions’ and given her current mental state, he no longer knew what parts of her past were real or delusions. This wasn’t the first time she had told him this. At one time she said the governor had one, too. At least that sounded more reasonable. The comments regarding who had some of her paintings started popping up around the same time she agreed to enter the nursing home. He had shared this statement with Janie, and she responded with a sad smile, hoping that any visions Amanda had in her remaining life would be as pleasant as that one.
A nurse walked into the room. “Come on, Mrs. Winter. It’s time for your physical therapy, and then you get to eat lunch.”
“Can we skip it and go straight to lunch?”
The nurse replied, “No ma’am. We want you to stay healthy and beautiful.”
“Oh, shush. I’m just an old lady.”
“Well, I hope I look as good as you when I’m your age.”
This was true. Not exactly an old lady, Amanda still looked nice at sixty-three. Of course, having daily physical therapy and a nurse bathing her and keeping her hair looking nice, helped a lot. Like her daughter Kathleen, she had been a stunner when she was younger, but she was an even greater beauty on the inside.
She was one of the sweetest and most loving people Scott had ever met, including his own mom, and he loved her as if she were his own.
“Mom, I’m going to be going now, but I’ll be back this weekend or next Monday. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank you for coming by.” She turned to the nurse and said, “Don’t I have the sweetest husband. He brought me those flowers.”
It was true that Scott had brought her the flowers currently sitting on her large dresser which also held several pictures of Mrs. Winter’s family. The catch was that he brought the ornate silk flowers over a year ago.
Sigh. Her deterioration was inevitable, but it still killed him to watch it. He wondered what she thought about it or if she thought about it.
The nursing home, if you could call it that, in which she resided was especially built for caring for those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. It was very likely the nicest nursing home in the state of Georgia. Franklin, knowing Amanda would likely need care, had purchased long-term care (LTC) insurance for many years in preparation for this. Between the LTC insurance, his life insurance, which paid out when he died of cancer several years ago, his investments, and her investments from a few paintings she had sold, she would need for nothing…except better health.
The beautiful property was on Lake Lanier, just northeast of Atlanta, and about twenty minutes from Scott’s business, Winter and Son’s Landscaping, which he and his wife inherited majority ownership from Janie’s father. The ‘Son’ was added after Scott took over. Scott’s degree in landscape architecture was what introduced him to Franklin Winter and then Janie.