The Green Lace Corset, стр. 73

A big surprise was the volunteer blackberry bush. Its prickly leaves curled up; the stems twisted under and over each other, spreading out like giants’ hands. A ripe berry sprang off into her fingers, and she plopped it in her mouth. Delicious.

She filled an empty pot with the blackberries. There were tons of them. Maybe she’d even make jam. She could watch a YouTube video to figure out how. Wait. Was she becoming domestic now? Inside, she rinsed her hands and the berries, made a smoothie, and put the extra in the fridge.

The residency had ended a few days before. The Freddy project had become a hit; museum visitors had lined up to adhere pieces. Mr. Willingsby had insisted the buck stay on display at least through the holidays and maybe longer. Anne could now concentrate on adding to her art inventory before the baby came. Her mom wanted her to go home for Thanksgiving, but Anne didn’t want to fly back in her condition and had decided to spend the holiday at Bay Breeze. She would see her mother when she came for the baby’s birth.

Scanning the knickknack shelf, Anne’s eyes landed on a Lladrólike Madonna. If it were authentic, she couldn’t have bought it for only a dollar.

She held it up to her stomach and said to the baby, “This is Our Lady of the Garden.”

She glued the statue in the center of a silver tray ready on the table and slipped a toy tea-set plate behind her head for a halo. She selected and added a ceramic Scottie dog, a rabbit, and a snail at the lady’s feet and two angels above her shoulders. In and out, Anne breathed, getting into the zone.

She dumped found objects from a baggie onto the table and searched for assorted flower earrings and brooches. She removed their backs and placed them all over the tray, then added broken dishes and florist gems throughout the empty spaces. When the pieces dried, she’d squish glue in the cracks and sprinkle in seed beads.

Waddling down the stairs, she unlocked Mrs. Landenheim’s door. Thai meowed and ran to his bowl. There was no sign of the kitty.

“Zorra,” Anne called, filling the food and water bowls.

She followed the sound of soft mewing to the bedroom. Anne carefully crawled down and peeked under the bed. “Zorra, there you are.”

The kitty wouldn’t come, so Anne grasped a hanger from the floor nearby and gently coaxed Zorra to her. Anne held her on her lap and caressed her. “You’re okay, sweetie. You must be lonely.”

Anne got up with Zorra in her arms and went down to the kitchen. Thai was eating from the kitty’s bowl. “Scat!” Anne shouted.

Thai hissed. Anne swept up the bowl and carried Zorra and the bowl up to her own apartment. Zorra jumped on Anne’s bed.

“You rest now, sweetie.” Anne stroked her back until Zorra fell asleep.

Anne moved Our Lady of the Garden to the counter, placed the finally clean hubcap on the kitchen table, and sorted through her found treasures for the right focal point, searching with her heart and not her mind. Settling on a turquoise-haired doll, she glued it in the hubcap’s center.

Since the hubcap was round like the sun, she wanted to create a sense of sunrays. She encircled the doll with a conch belt and glued down the pieces. On top of those, she added stars she had made at a clay workshop, and blue florist gems. For reflection, she added rectangular mirrors, and for inspiration, she glued word magnets on top of them: breathe, happy, honey, alluring, flame, compassion, star, light.

She added colorful bottle caps she’d collected from the Flagstaff bed-and-breakfast. Then dumped out milagros she’d purchased at El Santuario de Chimayó, north of Santa Fe, onto a tray, and the tiny vial of holy dirt fell out too. She thought about her visit to the National Historic Landmark pilgrimage site.

The sanctuary there was gorgeous, with pointed caps on the towers and a metal pitched roof. Folk art decorated the walls. A separate building displayed photographs, discarded crutches, and testimonials of those who claimed to have been healed. She had knelt down into a round pit and into the vial scraped up dirt believed to have healing powers. Seekers of cures rubbed themselves with the dirt. Anne hadn’t planned to do that. But life was unpredictable, and she set the vial on the coffee table by the bed.

Breathing deeply, she fastened milagros along the hubcap’s edge: a head, a heart, eyes, a rose, a leg like the one she’d given Mrs. Landenheim, a key, an angel, a cabin, and more.

Anne stepped back to inspect what she’d done. The combination of color, texture, and repetition was perfect. She eyed the centerpiece doll and said, “You go, girl.”

Oh, wait, she had a better title: You Glow, Girl! If that wasn’t a positive affirmation for her daughter, she didn’t know what was.

She picked up Zorra and put her in front of the bowl, where the kitty nibbled a few bites. Anne picked out a bowl from her art stash, filled it with water, and put it in front of Zorra, who lapped it right up.

Anne carried her back to the daybed and cuddled her until they fell asleep. Thai’s scratching outside on the door woke Anne up. Zorra slept at her feet. Anne rolled over onto her back, propped herself up on some pillows, and picked up the vial, ignoring that bully until he gave up.

She spun the vial in her fingers, pulled up her shirt, popped off the vial’s top, poured the dirt onto her giant belly, and caressed it in. “Here’s to a healthy, happy baby.”

She opened her journal to the chart where she’d been recording kick counts for week twenty-eight and added, Thursday, 9:00 p.m.

She lay on her left side, bare feet resting on Zorra, set her phone’s stopwatch, and put her hand on her stomach. “Come on, sweetheart, you can do it.” Anne closed her eyes and