Drawing Series -

For thirty years, he had taught drawing at a small, unremarkable liberal arts college. His students came in with dreams of graphic novels and gallery shows, and he taught them the brutal grammar of light: how a cast shadow is never black, how a line can be both a boundary and a suggestion, how the negative space around a thing is as real as the thing itself. He was a good teacher, patient and precise, but his own work had long ago settled into a comfortable, predictable competence. Still lifes of coffee cups and wilting apples. The occasional portrait of his wife, Mira, reading by the window.

He did not title this drawing. He simply dated it.

She set down her pruning shears. "Let me get my coat." drawing series

She looked at the drawing for a long time. Then she reached out and, with her index finger, traced the line of the door's handle. "It's not a door to somewhere else," she said, finally. "It's a door to right here. To this room. To this house. With me in it."

And then, without thinking, his hand began to draw a door. For thirty years, he had taught drawing at

They drove home in the blue twilight. They didn't speak much. At one point, she reached over and placed her hand on his knee. He covered it with his own. The weight of it was real.

Absence, Day 2.

Then, on a Tuesday in late October, Mira left.