Gaye spreads the butter, thick and cool, and on top of the jam. She leans against the table and looks. Ten feet by six feet. The largest canvas she’s ever painted. By far. Jam dribbles onto her palm and she switches the bread to her right hand to lick it.

There is nothing right now in the blotches of reds and oranges, yellows and greys, no discernable shape. But Gaye can see where she needs to add some warm darks, a pale green into the yellow to cool it down.

   She had also not painted so broadly – not in a long time. Normally, she worked a painting into itself quickly, applying small strokes, with smallish brushes, details in every stroke she laid down. This was not that though. This could only be seen at this distance – across the room. Up close, it took Gaye’s expert eye to know exactly what she was painting.

   She’d always wanted to paint him. David. Her David. Not The David. She remembers painting The David in college, so upset with the final result that she would never again look at the David. Not a photo of it. Not on television. Never.

   But this was so much better. Even if it was not yet there for anyone else to see, she could see the long lines of his legs, bent slightly at the knee. The curve of his neck, where it lay exposed by his head laying back against the arm of the sofa. She saw his arm drape gently down and away from his body, acutely perpendicular. The hand brushing the bare wooden floor lightly.

   She’d forgotten the crescent of bread with its slash of ruby red propped in her hand. She rarely ate while painting. Other times, when not within a painting, she and David cooked together, chopping and tossing ingredients into the sizzling pan. An act of creativity they’d always loved to do together.

   Gaye reflected that she wished she hadn’t waited this long to paint him. Always busy with other work. Commissions, exhibitions. Things other people wanted. But this painting was for her. 

   On her way to the sink to rinse her hands, she noticed the pink. The tile grout was stained, just lightly. Aside from regrouting, she couldn’t imagine how to remove it. That was for later, anyway. After the painting was finished. That was the only thing that mattered, finishing the painting.

   David’s head had dropped, his mouth now open and gaping. Gaye frowned and walked over to the sofa. She saw why. His muscles and joints were loosening, the stiff aftermath eroding. She rolled the tea towel in her hand, placed it under his head, bringing it forward. Better, she thought. She felt the urgency with which she had to work.

   Gaye laid in the darks, bringing David’s form out of the sofa, shaping his deep forehead, giving him his curls. But she was distracted now. To the right of the canvas, and behind, creeping into her vision, the girl. She couldn’t see her face, she faced the wall, right under the window. Gaye’s eyes were drawn to the figure on the floor. Blonde hair swept across the oak strips. She disappeared down the hall, returned with an old blanket, which she flung over the girl. 

Gaye returned to her painting.

    A knock at the door downstairs. Gaye returned to where the girl lay, leaned over her to look out the window. The smell rose up into her nose. But Gaye would not be distracted again from the painting she was making for herself. There were three of their cars on the street, and several of them in uniform, waiting it seemed to her. She just caught a bit of a leather jacket standing at the street door.

She couldn’t answer the door yet. She wasn’t finished. She had to finish first. She returned to her canvas, hurriedly laid in thick globules of paint, desperate to complete her magnus opus.

   She heard footsteps and a knock now at the apartment door. She ignored it. She was working frantically on David’s face, anxious to capture his expression. The one she’d seen so many times on his face. Love. Adoration. 

The door.

   His eyes looked directly into hers, his mouth parted. She couldn’t help adding a rosy tint to his cheeks from her memory. Gaye started on David’s elegant shoulders, broad yet slender. As long as she could finish the figure, she wasn’t going to worry about the background. David was the important thing. He was becoming The David. She giggled at the thought.

She heard the footsteps behind her. 

   Almost. She sensed them, standing at her shoulders, looking at Her David.

   “But I’m not finished,” she said.

   “It looks perfect to me.”

   She turned to look at him. “Really?”

   “Really.”

   “Thank you. I really wanted to paint David.”

   “I know you did. We have to go now Gaye. Let’s go.”

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