A Rainy Saturday
In the late spring, when school afternoons began to feel brighter, and summer was just around the corner, thirteen-year-old Edward Gray sat down awkwardly in the family den to play a video game. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, the sort of afternoon when the windows blurred silver and the cozy house smelled faintly of potpourri. As he logged in, he absentmindedly wondered what his mother and Aunt Patricia were up to in the dining room.
He sighed slightly as he rejoined his game. He quickly realized that he couldn’t really concentrate on his game with his aunt here, especially with the way he was dressed at the moment. He had always felt a little self-conscious around his Aunt Patricia. She had been a constant figure in his life especially after his father passed away several years ago. She was very well-off from a long-ago divorce settlement, and he vaguely knew she helped his mother out financially. He didn’t know much about the specifics. She had always been kind and generous to him and his mother, but often it all felt… smothering. With a subconscious shrug, he tried to shift his attention to the game.
Meanwhile, his mother and Aunt Patricia were going through some old family items in the dining room. Earlier, they had opened a long cedar chest that had sat untouched in the corner of the dining room for years. They now had a small collection of family odds and ends spread out on the large dining room table and were sorting through them.
“I told you Marian!” Patricia exclaimed, “look at that old photo… the resemblance is uncanny!”
Marian Gray looked at the old, sepia-toned photograph in her hand with a new appreciation. She hadn’t seen this photo in years. The oval photograph in a tarnished silver frame depicted a demure young girl who sat very straight up in a pale Victorian gown on a carved wooden chair. Her eyes were lifted as if she had just heard someone call from another room. “It is striking, Patricia,” she had to admit. She looked from the photograph in her hand to the partially unwrapped package on the table before her. The old tissue paper crinkled at the touch, and it smelled of lavender sachets and the deep, secret scent of old cloth.
“Let’s just see what he thinks,” Patricia urged. After a brief pause, Marian nodded silently.
In the very next instant, Edward heard his Aunt Patricia calling him. “Edward, dear,” Aunt Patricia’s voice rang out, “would you come join your mother and me in the dining room, please?” Although it was phrased as a question, her tone was insistent.
Edward was annoyed at the interruption. He grimaced slightly. Although he had learned over time it was usually best to see what his aunt wanted, he was tempted to just keep playing. After another few seconds, however, he thought better of it. He reluctantly paused the game. It was nearly impossible to ignore her, and stalling usually just made it more uncomfortable.
As he stood up from the couch, he heard her voice again, this time louder, “Oh Edward sweetie, did you hear me? Your mother and I are waiting for you!”
“I’m coming… Aunt Patricia!” he called back. She always looked a little peeved if he didn’t address her as “Aunt Patricia” or “Aunty Patricia” or sometimes just “Aunty.” He always tried to remember to add that and forestall any additional drama. It all kind of seemed silly to him, but he had no interest in rocking the boat when it came to his aunt.
Rounding the corner into the dining room, Edward saw his mother and aunt standing next to the open chest. His mother was holding what looked like an old dress that Edward had never seen. His Aunt Patricia hovered beside her sister with an eagerness she did not bother to conceal. The dress, Edward would soon learn, had belonged to his great-great grandmother. As Edward looked at it curiously, it seemed to him less like clothing than a preserved piece of another century.
“My goodness it took you so long I thought we might have to send out a search party!” his aunt chided him with a cheerful smile.
Although it had been no more than twenty seconds since she first called him, Edward replied meekly, “Sorry… Aunty.”
“Oh you little rascal,” she said with a barely stifled giggle, “always up to some shenanigans!” Then, for the umpteenth time it seemed, she beamed, “I still can’t get over how handsome you look in that darling suit!”
Edward cringed to be reminded of his attire, but he kept silent. If anything, he was a meek and obedient child most of the time compared to his peers. He was naturally shy, and now in his adolescence he tried to avoid the spotlight even more.
For a moment, his thoughts drifted.
He was well aware of certain things about his appearance, mostly because other people often mentioned them. For example, his mother had always kept his light brown hair a little long for a boy. It was not deliberately fashionable but difficult to keep trimmed because it curled at the ends and never seemed to lie as short as he wished. His face, too, had a delicacy he could not deny: a narrow chin, fine-boned cheeks, dark watchful eyes, and a mouth that looked more thoughtful than bold. He did not dislike these things exactly, but he knew by now that they projected a certain softness to others.
His Aunt Patricia had always noticed these things too. She had no children of her own, and so, from the time Edward was small, she had poured a great deal of her unused attention onto him. She was loving in her way, lavish and admiring, but her admiration often made him uncomfortable because it seemed to pass over everything boyish about him and settle instead on what she called his prettiness. “Such a pretty child,” she would say, smoothing his hair or turning his chin toward the light. “Those eyes, Marian. And that mouth. Quite refined.”
Over time, Edward had learned to endure the remarks by pretending not to hear them. Her gifts to him had always followed the same pattern. Other boys received baseball gloves, toy race cars, model trains or video games. Aunt Patricia brought Edward things like fine stationery and monogrammed handkerchiefs. She once presented him a porcelain keepsake box for small photos and trinkets, and another time he received a little velvet case containing pearl shirt studs for occasions Edward could not even imagine. She seemed to have no conception of what a typical boy might want. Everything she chose was polished, scented, folded in tissue, or tied with ribbon, as if refinement itself were a present. It seemed to Edward that she meant every gift kindly, but her generosity always leaned in a very particular direction.
For his birthday when Edward was ten, for instance, Aunt Patricia had arrived with a parcel about the size of a book, wrapped in ivory paper and tied with a satin ribbon so pale it was nearly white. Edward had accepted it with a slight sense of trepidation.
“Open it carefully,” Aunt Patricia had said, settling beside Edward as if the ribbon itself deserved respect. Inside was a small leather case lined with blue silk. Nestled in it lay a silver-backed hand mirror and a matching comb, both engraved with a delicate spray of lilies.
Edward stared, unsure what expression would be safest. “For me… Aunt Patricia?” he had asked with a squeaky little voice.
“Of course, sugar,” Aunt Patricia had gushed, delighted. “For that lovely honey brown hair of yours! A young person with such refined features ought to have refined things.”
The mirror was beautiful; that was the trouble. It was cool and heavy in his hand, made with a care he could not dismiss, and yet it seemed meant for someone quieter, prettier, and more willing to be admired.
“Thank you, Aunty,” he had croaked, because Aunt Patricia had been watching him with such hopeful pleasure. She had kissed his forehead and smoothed the hair the comb was meant to tame.
“There,” she said cheerily. “I knew you would appreciate it.” Edward did not know whether appreciation was the name for what he felt, but he kept the case closed in his drawer for months, taking it out only when no one could see.
And just last year, when he was twelve, she had announced her intention to buy him a proper new suit for Easter. This had all sounded innocent enough until he saw it on Easter Sunday morning. When his mother brought a pink garment bag into his bedroom and unzipped it, Edward recoiled and cringed at how childish and fancy it was! With a looming sense of dread, he had pleaded with his mother not to make him wear it, but she insisted. Aunt Patricia was coming over soon, and they were all going to a fancy Easter dinner at his aunt’s country club. His mother had told him almost sympathetically, “Sweetheart we can’t disappoint your aunt after she made all this effort for you.”
When Aunt Patricia had swooped in to pick them up, she had gushed over how handsome and refined her nephew looked dressed in the monstrosity. “Absolutely gorgeous,” she had proclaimed. “It fits you beautifully, sweetie! It makes you look so cultured and dapper!”
Edward’s exquisitely tailored “proper new suit” was a baby blue wool blend, and the coat was actually a little waistcoat paired with matching blue knee pants that gathered with elastic at the knees! Underneath the coat, he had been buttoned into a billowy white silk shirt with French cuffs and subtle ruffles down the front. A baby blue ribbon tie was daintily knotted at the rounded collar, and the floppy silk bow looked much more prissy than handsome in Edward’s opinion. Crisp white knee socks and a pair of matching baby blue loafers had completed the juvenile look. He had felt like such a sissy!
“Thank you, Aunt Patricia,” he had managed to spit out. After a reproving glance from his mother he had reluctantly added, “It’s very nice.”
Then, as if that weren’t enough, she had presented him with another daintily wrapped Easter gift. The wrapping paper was patterned with vintage Easter bunnies and tied with a fancy pink bow. When he had tentatively opened the second box, he discovered a large vintage doll. The doll was a young boy with lifelike features and honey-brown hair dressed in a darling blue suit that exactly matched the one he had been wearing!
His aunt had beamed as he held it up gingerly, “Now you have a little twin! Isn’t he precious?”
Flabbergasted, Edward had been at a loss for words.
His mother had piped in, clearly taken aback but trying to be polite, “It’s... quite charming, Patricia!” then with a pointed look at her son, she added, “and what do we say Edward?”
“Th.. thank you... Aunty,” Edward had stammered, “It’s… great.”
The elaborate doll now sat prominently displayed on a shelf in the den. He shuddered as he recalled the memory of all the people at the country club gawking at him and the muffled giggles he occasionally heard from other children at nearby tables. No one else had been dressed in anything remotely like the outfit he had worn. He had felt so sissified wearing it, especially with the way his aunt had continually adjusted his floppy bow and brushed invisible lint off his coat throughout the dinner. Ever since, his pretty doll on the shelf had been a constant reminder of the experience, and the horrible suit still hung menacingly in his closet.
To his chagrin, Edward was fastidiously dressed in that same fancified and juvenile suit today for his aunt's visit.
Topic: The Portrait of Edward Gray (Read 63 times)
