Paint Me a Monster, page 22
Mr. Algrin loses his informal air and locks his eyes on mine. He’s so close I can smell the starch in his shirt.
“You can re-parent yourself, Rinnie. You can choose to love yourself unconditionally. It’s your life. You get to write it. What do you want on your tombstone? She never made a mistake because she was afraid to take a risk OR She celebrated every day and loved her life.”
“How do I start?”
“You already have. Baby steps. First one, then another. Remember the pebbles in the road, the easy ones to pick up? You’re ready for stones, rocks, even small boulders.”
I remember a saying from long ago, on one of Mr. Algrin’s slips of paper.
I say the words out loud. ‘“Look for answers where they can’t be seen.’ I never understood this until now. The answers are tangled inside me, in the darkness, in the scary places. I’m not afraid to go there anymore. I’m not alone, am I?”
“You’re not alone. You never have to be. Like you said, ‘You don’t give up easily.’” Mr. Algrin’s face shines. “You’re Rinnie from Rin Tin Tin: fast, smart, brave, and you save people. That includes you.”
“I remember a dream I had as a little girl. There’s a poem I used to hear in my sleep . . . a monster taunted me with a poem. It was a long, long time ago,” I say.
“Can you recite the poem?” Mr. Algrin asks.
The words recall themselves from a curtained memory.
“If you ever, ever, ever,
Try to sneak away,
I’ll be waiting in the night.
I’ll be waiting in the day.
You never will escape me.
You never will be free.
You’re my forever, ever, ever
You’re the lock that fits my key.”
Mr. Algrin is quiet. So am I.
“Forever, ever, ever.” He chants the phrase like an evil spell. “It’s chilling. What do you think the poem means?”
A belly breath speaks for me, and then I say, “I think it’s about Mom and me. Mom needed a place for her pain. The place had to be well guarded, and it had to be malleable. It had to be strong to hold on to holding on. It had to be tough enough to endure. The place was the lock. Mom fit what she hated about herself and her life into the lock. The lock is a metaphor.”
“Yes,” he pauses. “Yes. Do you know where the lock is?”
I pause. “In front of you . . . I’m in front of you,” I say. “I am the lock!”
Mr. Algrin swallows. I swear there are tears in his eyes.
“Mom was the key.” I stop and wipe away my own tear. “We were miscast. Her key never fit my lock, did it?”
The thought reminds me of a drawing I made. “Remember the picture I drew of a faceless house?”
“I remember you wondered who would live in a house like that.”
“I wrote a poem that goes with that house. I want to share it with you,” I say. I close my eyes, slow my breath, and start:
“Whose house is this I’d like to know,
It’s like a bride without trousseau.
It lacks both windows and a door
It greets the eye and nothing more.
Why build a structure blind and mute,
A non-fulfilling substitute.
For openhearted give and take.
Aborted life, a big mistake.”
We both sit quietly, the poem still noisy in the air.
“No windows, no door, no chimney. No exit, no entry—by me or anyone else. I built that house around me. It seemed the safest way to exist,” I say in a whisper. “I want more than to just exist. I’m drawing a door—and windows.”
Mr. Algrin gets up slowly and stands next to me. He doesn’t move and then he claps me on the back and says, “Good work, Rinnie.”
I hug myself and laugh. It’s an odd sound in Mr. Algrin’s office.
It feels good.
EPILOGUE
My name is Rinnie Gardener. I am truly a gardener. I have planted seeds. I’m growing perennials. One perennial is hope, another trust, and a third freedom. My garden is big. There’s room to grow many more things. I’m posting a sign in the garden that says “Visitors Welcome.”
I think the growing season will be a long one. I know there will be freezes, insects, drought, or heavy rains. I also know there will be sunny days, filled with butterflies and fluffy white clouds. Fluffy white clouds tucked in a bed of blue sky. Tranquil. Almost as healing as painting.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to Jane Resh Thomas for encouraging me to “just write.” A thousand thanks to Alison McGee. To Andy and Cris, I can’t imagine life without you. And to Brad, for encouraging me to illustrate children’s books. If you hadn’t, Rinnie would never have been born.
Note To Our Readers
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Copyright © 2014 by Janie Baskin
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baskin, Janie.
Paint me a monster / Janie Baskin.
pages cm
Summary: Rinnie relates a childhood marked by privilege but also abuse, which steadily increases after her parents’ divorce and remarriages, emotionally crippling Rinnie until a school counselor helps her begin to heal.
ISBN 978-1-62324-018-9
[1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Family problems—Fiction. 3. Emotional problems—Fiction. 4. Psychotherapy—Fiction. 5. Eating disorders—Fiction. 6. Family life—Ohio—Fiction. 7. Jews—United States—Fiction. 8. Cincinnati (Ohio)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ.7.B29228Pai 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2012051040
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EPUB ISBN: 978-1-62324-020-2
Single-User PDF ISBN: 978-1-62324-021-9
Multi-User PDF ISBN: 978-1-62324-022-6
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Janie Baskin, Paint Me a Monster
