Peony

The quiet of the museum always soothed Genevieve. Its lofty spaces, inexplicably quiet despite it’s echoing vast spaces. The muted wall colors, the shiny floors, the intricately carved frames that sometimes overwhelmed the artwork it was meant to showcase.

Genevieve bought a membership annually. Her reasoning was twofold:

1. she wanted to foster the arts in her city
2. she wanted as much access as a membership allowed

This was her favorite time of day to come: mid-afternoon on a weekday. Any other time could be unpredictable. There could be field trips with half feral children, released for the day from the confines of their desks and strict schedules on any given weekday — especially in the later spring months. In the evenings, Genevieve never seemed to time it right to avoid those milling about to be seen instead of to see. And weekends provided an interesting time to sit on the backless benches in the center of the cavernous rooms to people watch; but viewing the art without rush or interruption was rarely the norm on a weekend. Too many tourists, families seeking refuge from humidity int he summer, gale force winds in the spring and fall, or wet fat snowflakes and freezing temperatures in the winter.

So Genevieve routinely took a late lunch from the office, conveniently two blocks away, and visited the museum in the mid afternoon. She couldn’t always get away, of course, but at least once a week, she managed.

Her favorite painting of all was coincidentally created by her great great uncle. She accidentally found this out when she fell down a rabbit hole researching her family tree 25 years ago. This was before the popular dna and family tree options were available around every corner of the internet. Genevieve had scoured old records, even traveled to Canada and then Ireland to read through lists of scrawly church records. In those days, baptism and death records were most reliably kept by the local church.

She’d lost interest after about 5 years of research, having traced her family back to Ireland. She’d briefly considered moving there, to see if she somehow felt more connected to a space here ancestors had once trod. But she became quickly overwhelmed with the requirements of transplanting herself at her age. So she stayed. But her the lineage mystery solved to her satisfaction, she’d moved on.

When a friend invited her to the museum a few blocks away from work one evening, she agreed. After moving through the admission hullabaloo, Genevieve was surprised to feel a sudden peace in her being. She ended up staying longer than her companion that evening, so transfixed with the solemness of the place. There was a variety for the eyes like no other. She didn’t even finish a full circuit of the museum before she was politely informed that the museum was closed and she realize there were no other visitors in the room.

She apologized, mortified that night. When she emerged onto the dark street, it was like being slapped soundly by an unexpectedly high ocean wave. The spell had broken. This startled Genevieve and she returned the next evening, only to find it overrun with visitors. She could feel the peace when she found a quiet space, but was routinely jostled out of the feeling by obtrusive museum goers.

After a week or so of experimenting with different times, Genevieve concluded that midafteroon week days she would be most successful. By this point, Genevieve had already purchased an annual membership.

It was a week after that that Genevieve found a whole other level of museum enjoyment when she began reading the tiny descriptions near each exhibit. This stretched out her visits, and she was finding it harder to move through the museum in the course of one lunch break. Instead, she set about re-discovering each room in more detail by forcing herself to observe the exhibit, read the card affixed near the exhibit, and then observe the exhibit again with consideration to what she’d just learned. In this way, Genevieve was able to pass her lunch time most splendidly. She could complete one whole room with time to visit her favorite painting, no matter the room she was spending most of her time in that day.

Her favorite painting was as tall as she was and filled with one huge bloom on a dark black background, lit from the side.. She didn’t know she had a favorite flower until she saw this painting. Genevieve had had to do some research to discover that the flower was called a Peony; scientific name: Paeonia. On the painting, it glowed a soft, impossibly delicate pink. Genevieve always considered herself strong and uninterested in anything frilly. But this peony painting opened something unexpected in Genevieve.

She was saving herself a special treat, reading the description next to this painting that spoke so deeply to her until she’d read all of the other descriptions in the museum. So that is how she didn’t discover her personal connection to this painting for several months. When she read the familiar family name, she gasped. She immediately remembered this Great Uncle’s name as her brother had been named for him. Not because our family wanted to honor him in any way; just because my parents were stuck on what to name their 8th child and 5th son. So they asked my elderly dad’s grandfather, who was still alive at the time, to list all of the male relatives he could think of. Clarence. My brother hated the name and about the time he morphed from child to teen, he started introducing himself by his middle name Ray, which he preferred. But Genevieve’s brother being named after this remote relative is the only reason his name stuck in her memory from doing her family’s genealogy work. The artist’s first and last name matched Genevieve’s Great Great Uncle. Genevieve had gasped audibly in the museum, the sound echoing embarrassingly that day.

Genevieve opted not to go to work for the remainder of that day. Instead, she rushed home and retrieved the reams of paper documenting her family’s lineage. She quickly found her Great Uncle and she felt herself go cold when she confirmed that her suspicion was correct: the birth year and death year’s matched. The peony painter was related to her.

This day was particularly hectic. Her heinous supervisor was in one of his moods and Genevieve almost didn’t get away. But she was desperate for the reprieve the museum offered. She moved with confidence of someone familiar with their space, directly to her favorite painting. She passed the mountain scene and the collection of minuscule paintings of delicate fish, and stood dumbfounded in front of a unfamiliar painting. She vaguely was aware that it was from the purple room. So she moved to the purple room, wondering if the curator had opted to rearrange paintings. But no other painting seemed to be out of place. Where Genevieve was almost certain the unfamiliar painting was supposed to hang in the purple room was a sculpture mysteriously attached to the wall.

Confused, Genevieve returned to where the peony painting should be.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly to a nearby museum employee. She tried to hide the frantic feeling that was gurgling through her. The employee, short and round with a kind face, turned to Genevieve expectantly. Genevieve saw their name plate said ‘Sam’.

“Normally there’s a painting here … it’s bigger than this one and it’s of a peony. Do you know where it is?” Genevieve asked.

“Oh yes, someone noticed it had a slight tear starting in an upper corner so the museum’s conservator-restorer had it moved to her workshop this morning.” Genevieve was clearly distraught. Thinking fast, Sam said: “would you like me to see if she’s available to speak with you?”

“Yes!” Genevieve said, her eyes glistening.

Sam bolted towards a back door, painted to blend in with the sheet rock.

Genevieve looked up at the ceiling, blinking fast to mitigate the tear flow. She was surprised at her show of emotion.

The door opened noiselessly and, so Genevieve was startled to hear a soft voice say: “Hi, I’m Louise, the museum’s curator-restorer. Sam says you’re won-” she stopped mid sentence and gasped when Genevieve lowered her eyes to look into Louise’s eyes. She covered her mouth to uselessly cover her gasp. She whispered: “It’s you.”

Genevieve was alarmed. “Excuse me?” she asked.

“Come with me!” Louise said, animated, and all-but dragged Genevieve through the door into the back work rooms. Genevieve struggled to keep her feet under her as she was swiftly pulled down a narrow hallway, lined on both sides with huge plate glass windows, peering into administrative inner workings of the museum. Genevieve wanted to take all of this in. It had never occurred to her, the work to maintain an art museum.

Louise yanked Genevieve through the door the hall emptied into. The workshop for restoring suffering art work. Directly ahead, a work light trained to it, and naked of its frame, was the peony, propped on an easel. Approximately 25% of the canvas had been pulled down from the top to reveal a painting below. Genevieve stepped forward carefully. The work room went silent, and then began to buzz with verbal electricity as one-by-one the curators, historians, restorers, and artists all realized what Louise had realized and Genevieve was just discovering.

Genevieve stared at the hidden painting, the one safely hidden below the peony. It was a woman, who looked remarkably like herself. Uncannily like herself. Genevieve touched her hair, precisely matching the color of the painted woman’s hair. But the hairstyle was off and plenty of women have deep brown hair. It was the eyes that drew Genevieve the most. They were identical to her own. She was close enough to the painting now, that if she could see the woman’s mouth, she would have felt her breath.

Longing to see if the woman had more physical similarities to Genevieve, she peered between the two tight pieces of canvas. It was then that she felt the sensation of slipping, and felt as though she was falling between the canvases. Everything was black and she felt herself swirl until she landed gently on a soft cushion.

A match was lit and then a nearby candle came to life.

“Stories are always better heard in the dark,” a wispy gentle woman proclaimed, “don’t you agree?”

When nobody responded, because they were all staring at Genevieve, the woman noticed.

“Oh!” The woman said, pleasantly startled. “You’re here at last, Genevieve! What took you so long?”