In the first instant we locked eyes, I was hooked.
I know, it’s so cheesy. If Mom was still alive she’d have warned me against trusting blue-eyed devils and too-good-to-be-true Hallmark meet-cutes. But I was like a moth to a flame. His eyes were just so blue. It was a brilliant blue as well, a bright and icy arctic frost speckled with flecks of gray and turquoise. You never knew what you were going to get when you looked into those eyes. Sometimes, it was like dipping into the still waters of a crystal-clear alpine lake; sometimes, it was like being sucked into the heart of a stormy blizzard; and sometimes, it was like melting into the tepid, bubbling waters of a hot spring. Under harsh sunlight, his blue eyes would turn a soft warm brown, a wave of chocolate and hazel-green slowly washing over his irises in a kaleidoscopic gradient of colour. It was like his eyes slipped on a new cloak, like a mesmerizing magic trick you just couldn’t look away from. And I was fully captivated.
We met at an art gallery in my hometown of Montpelier, Vermont. A large painting of a local apple orchard had caught our attention and our attention only. He broke the silence after we’d stood next to each other for a good 3 minutes, completely engrossed in the painting.
“I lived next to an apple farm that looked like this when I was a kid.”
I smiled fondly, recalling my own childhood memories. “I grew up here, actually. I went to that exact apple orchard, every single autumn.”
He turned to me, a cheeky glimmer in his eyes, “oh really? And are the apples as perfect as in the painting?”
“They’re – ” I looked up to meet his gaze, and instantly found myself (and my train of thought) lost in his beautiful baby blues, “not quite as beautiful.”
I remember nothing of the conversation that followed. He must’ve been charming, and I must’ve been dazzled… and I don’t think he said or did anything to alarm me, certainly nothing in the red flag category. All I know is by the end, I was in love. And all I remember is swimming in two lakes of azure blue.
One date quickly turned into two, then three. I put a name to those eyes – Derek – and learned that he was from Austria. He moved to the US five years ago for a fine arts degree and eventually found himself in Montpelier, managing several local art galleries for a national art house. He told me about his childhood in Wollsdorf, his loneliness since moving here and his dreams for the future. He could talk for hours about art too, and I often found myself listening in earnest. I started opening up to him as well, despite myself. His gorgeous blue eyes always made me feel so safe and warm.
It’s funny to think about it now – I was only in town for the weekend. Well, I was only supposed to be in town for the weekend. For Mom’s funeral. I was also there to tidy up her house, get it ready for sale and tie up some other loose ends. Meeting Derek changed things. At the risk of sounding like a hopeless romantic, this serendipitous meeting felt right, like it was Mom’s last gift to me. A cosmic blessing delivered by the end of one life, to herald the start of two brand new ones. Who am I kidding, Mom was always a grumpy old bat. I’m not sure if she would have approved of Derek. Then again, I’m not sure I care.
Growing up with Mom wasn’t easy. When I was 9, Dad revealed he cheated on her then up and left us. He never returned. Initially, she was just angry, and ranted non-stop for me to “never trust blue-eyed bastards”, among other complaints. As the months wore on, she proceeded to fill the dad-sized hole in the house with increasingly odd eccentricities… and people. She would always send me up to my room when her ‘friend’-of-the-month came over, but from the boozy conversations that drifted up the stairs and through the crack in my door frame, I could always picture them. There was Greg, the handsome builder with the most charming Irish accent; Linda, the new-in-town baker with a toothy sunshine smile, who was looking to make a friend; Eric, the hand model who loved painting… There was always a new fad of the month(s) to accompany each new friend. She would spend weeks pouring over books about Ireland, or learning how to bake artisanal sourdough bread, or filling the house with easels, paints and those ugly clay hand sculptures. Funnily enough, despite all that effort, none of them ever stayed. You knew the relationship was over when Mom moodily marched around the house clearing all the tools she’d accumulated, only to, of course, start over with a brand-new obsession the next month. Our house was in a constant state of flux, littered with dusty books or baking supplies or paintbrushes, the wallpaper and furniture always in some new colour or configuration.
The only real constant was her love of art. She had a rather tasteful and sizeable art collection splayed out across the hallways and rooms in our house. Some were perfect replicas of Monets or Van Goghs, and others were originals by small up-and-coming artists. Her real prized pieces, though, were kept under heavy lock-and-key in the basement. She would often disappear for hours at a time to tend to those pieces, leaving me all alone upstairs, my growing curiosity threatening to bubble over. She would eventually slip up, though. The first time I snuck into the cool, dimly lit basement, I was lost for words.
Mom was furious when she found out. She imploded with a rage I’d never seen in her before, her usually stern mahogany eyes now dark with the bitterness of my betrayal. She stormed up and down the house, ripping apart anything she could get her hands on, smashing pots and vases, screaming about privacy and respect and her resentment for Dad, for single motherhood… for me. By the end, the house was completely blitzed, the remnants of her manic rampage strewn in every room. We didn’t speak for a week.
When she finally came around, she told me it had taken her years to hone and refine the craft of curating and maintaining her collection. It had grown to the point of becoming priceless. Nobody could know about it and nobody could be trusted with it. “They simply won’t understand,” she’d said to me. That was mom in a nutshell, always preoccupied sinking all her time into some obsession or paranoia that she had none left for me in the present. As the years passed, she did open up more and I was often invited in the basement to learn the tricks of her trade. Eventually, I moved to San Francisco for college and rarely returned. Her funeral was the first time in years that I’d stepped foot into the house and into her basement.
Despite my initial eagerness to sell the house and all the vestiges of my shitty childhood lurking within it, a visit to the basement filled me with an unexpected sense of nostalgia. Her collection was huge and beautiful. It would be a pity to just sell it or throw it all away. It was just as well; I had extended my stay in Montpelier from a weekend to two weeks by now, and Derek and I were going from strength to strength. By the sixth date we were discussing marriage, by the ninth I officially quit my job and by the tenth I invited Derek to move into my mom’s house with me. It’s a little crazy, I know. I could imagine mom’s reaction to this – she would’ve furrowed her brows, wrinkled her nose, and snapped, “haven’t I taught you anything? You’re moving way too fast. It’s not going to work.” Well, Mom, I’ll show you.
Derek insisted on visiting the house before moving in, and I tentatively agreed. I gave him the grand tour, peppered with the few stories about Mom’s idiosyncrasies that I hadn’t already told him. He was suitably impressed by Mom’s art collection that adorned the walls upstairs, and we spent the better part of an hour discussing some of his favourite pieces and not-so-favourite ones. He balked when he saw the Picture of Dorian Gray replica, “that one is so dark to put here in a house. I can see it from the dining table when I’m eating!”
I giggled, “babe, that’s one of mom’s favourites, and it’s also one of mine. It’s dark but it’s meaningful. It’s relatable… for some people, I’m sure.”
Derek rolled his blue eyes, “ok, but when I move here, we better cover it up, ok?”
I paused. “When? When you move? So… it’s not an if, then?” I teased.
He laughed and winked at me, his eyes a cloudy midnight blue under the warm, yellow incandescent kitchen light. God, I love his blue eyes.
“I’m so excited! I’ll go grab your key!” I gave him a quick peck and rushed into the spare bedroom in search of the copy of the house key.
It took me a little while to find the second house key amidst the jumble of other keys and Mom’s things I had been midway through sorting. By the time I returned, Derek was no longer in the kitchen. I stared up at the Portrait of Dorian Gray and his bulging eyes glared back at me accusatorially. The house was eerily silent.
“Derek?”
Derek wasn’t in the dining room. I could feel my heart squeeze in my chest.
“Derek, where are you?”
Derek wasn’t in the living room.
“Derek, babe – “
I turned the corner. The door to the basement was open.
Shit.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He never should have crossed that line. By the next morning when Derek remained uncontactable, I lodged a police report. I haven’t heard back since. I continued staying in the house, though. As much as it felt like a cursed house at this point, there was still unfinished business left to do, starting in the basement. After years of acting as Mommy’s little helper, I learned enough to start adding to Mom’s basement collection. Well, our basement collection. Though of course, there was much work to be done. For starters, I needed to learn to move slower and more methodically.
I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – Mom’s obsessiveness seems to have manifested in my newfound fixation for our basement collection. Then again, I’ve always been a little like Mom. We’ve always had good taste, and a bit of a collector’s habit. Like Mom used to say: why should you let a pretty thing go?
I never saw Derek again. But from the jar in the basement, I know Derek’s blue eyes always see me. They look exactly as they did the first day we met – the prettiest, bluest little collectible, now sitting right next to Dad’s grey-blue eyes. And sometimes, when the display cabinet lights are turned on, their eyes turn a warm shade of brown.