UNTOLD


She stood painting at an easel in a meadow in the mountains. Her fingers were streaked with gesso. Her boots were spattered with trickles of burgundy and cerulean. Theodore sat flipping through a newspaper, leaning back on a blanket with his ankles crossed, wearing a broad-brimmed wool hat and a pair of leather mittens. Snow was floating down from the clouds. Clara cupped her hands near her mouth, breathing in and then bending her head to press her mouth to her thumbs and breathing out, warming her fingers with the air. A pronghorn was loping through the meadow. She gazed at the vibrant shades of turquoise and cyan and indigo in the grass, shifting colors under the gleaming frost. The haze of clouds. She rubbed her hands together. She reached for a paintbrush, feeling a sense of bliss. She could smell the scent of the paint and the grass and the tart fragrance of smoke on the wind.