Failure’s Art

Prologue

Kevin repeated Blue’s words in the form of a question. “Vanishing twin syndrome, as the name depicts, is a condition?” 

Blue nodded. 

Kevin said, “You have a condition?” 

“No,” Blue said. “It’s nothing like that.” 

Blue continued. Kevin listened. 

When Blue finished, what silence allowed filled the room. 

Kevin said, “Is this something we grieve?” 

He was high. His pupils were tiny. Like poppy seeds. But that didn’t mean anything. 

Kevin was always high. Kevin was high when Blue told him she was pregnant. He reacted similarly. With curiosity. But also, she knew, great happiness. Hope, even.

“Nah,” she said. “Probably not.” 

He looked at her, carefully. He said, “So that leaves us with one baby?” 

She smiled and nodded. Reached for the side of his face.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to have one baby.”   

He leaned into her hand. They remained like that for some time.  

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.

And God is faithful; he will not let you…

-- 1 Corinthians 10:13-14

…vomit. Kevin leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes and returned to a palace of elegance. Blue pulled the needle from his arm and untied his tourniquet. She unfolded his shirt and buttoned the sleeve at his wrist. His skin was not warm. She found his spoon and lighter and she wrapped these items in a drop cloth which she let fall in the trash. She felt a presence. Blue placed a hand on her stomach. She blinked through a few tears. This small shower of lightness.

Without thought she grabbed items—though everything would go—finding syntax in this action, language in the art of disposal, applying brushes not against palette or easel but dropping them in the trash, pouring solvent into the trash, the 32-gallon tomb where so too went all of that which Kevin used to paint #2—water jars and acrylics, tiny cans of specialty paint, aprons, totes, trays, pallets, tubes, palette cups, wells, trays, carts, cups, stencils, wringers, paper, pastels, sketches, markers, pens, glue, ink, oil, tape, knives, charcoal and foam—Blue tossing all of this into the trash, Blue minding every sound of every made action before, herself stilling, all settled into silence. 

There was his calendar, nailed to the wall. Something like God, this creation. A month sketched on a sheet of paper, this large rectangle, and this shape broken into thirty-five squares. His past; his today (for there was something written to do, later this evening); and his future. His notes were scribbled in pencil, messy handwriting only he could decipher. 

7:30. Present.    

Well, that’s sure what it looked like, anyway. The time was legible, and Blue could not imagine what else the word, however poor his handwriting, might be. She thought through their week. Had he an engagement? She didn’t think so. Even when their child was little more than an abstraction, a sensation—if she could even call it that—this something that swirled inside her like an eddy within a pool…. Well, even back then, Kevin informed his agent that he would not be appearing—that was the word he used, ‘appearing’—that he was going to remain at home, with Blue, throughout the pregnancy.  

A gift then? Okay. If so, for whom? There was no one. Well, there was, of course, her. The baby. Was it something for her? The baby? But why today? Why 7:30?   

The calendar was not made, nor was it intended, for her. Still. This, Blue thought, even as she pulled the calendar from the wall and set it in the trash, was something to keep. A minor treasure. Something to set aside and forget, only to discover years, maybe decades, later. What would she think? What, of Kevin, would she remember? Well, that depended on the life she was then living. And who with. And then she saw. There, beneath her. Not on every box, but elsewhere on the calendar. Written atop those squares preceding the box denoting today. There—and there, and there—Kevin had scribbled the word: Present. This word written after a different time—of morning. As if signing in for the day. As if, after entering his studio, Kevin reminded himself of who, and where, he was.     

Blue knew these had been good days, days when he accomplished much and returned to their house and, with a small smile, kissed the top of her head. Reeking of acrylics he rested a hand atop her stomach. Asked how she was feeling. After slowly unlacing his boots he grabbed a beer from the fridge (the only time he drank), and made for the shower. Blue stood and listened to the running water. She saw blue mixing with red. She saw purple water swirling down the drain. The erasure of an afternoon.

Something in the garbage settled. A sound—a movement—which she could not describe. For she did not possess the word. What had she been thinking? Blue could not recall. Her thoughts were gone. As if she had entertained no thoughts at all.

There were Kevin’s drugs. These he kept on a small wooden shelf. A real apothecary. Morphine in bright glass containers. Heroin. Faded pharmacy bottles with their labels long worn away and filled with small pills—some so tiny as to seem worthless—white and blue and pink and green. How Kevin precisely knew their purpose. How Kevin knew the effects they produced both individually, and, to hear him talk, in interesting combinations. How he cared for this medication as a mother her child, as if the pills had come from him, were a part of him, his constant concern. How they needed his care and attention. Blue opened bottles and baggies and poured these wonders atop his calendar. The drugs pooled and funneled to the bottom of the can.

Spooked, Blue looked over her shoulder. Had Kevin the capacity to rise, now was that time. Voice raised he would lunge, he would try to stop her. He would demand to know what, exactly, she thought she was doing. But no. That was melodrama. Had they troubles, they were never of that sort. There were no—at least she didn’t think—problems. She hadn’t wanted him to change.

Kevin understood his addiction. Blue thought he had, too. Kevin believed he knew the right time to quit. Blue trusted what he, himself, told her (Kevin was no liar). This meant Blue, like Kevin, knew that he’d stop when he was ready. Probably, he often said, after they had married. Maybe, he once said, when a certain level of success—which, following his last exhibition, was undeniable—forced him to extensively travel. Definitely, he said, if she got pregnant. When Blue was five months pregnant, he was ready.

Later, she just smiled. But not at first. At first she nodded, solemnly. There beside him on the bed, listening to him on the phone, Kevin asking women with kind voices questions about insurance—asking, if that was the case, well, then, how much—Blue was not smiling because she was happy. Blue, in those moments, smiled because she was something far worse. Hopeful.

She poured the paint over the calendar, over everything, slowly letting the paint spill, moving the heavy red can (everything was heavy, lately) in great, loping circles. The smell wasn’t of Kevin. Of painting. Blue chased thoughts of what next to do. One thought fed the other. Each was inevitable.

When the can, light in her hands, slipped, and she reached to secure greater purchase, she could not remember thinking at all. She stood looking at her work. Paint dropped from where it caught in the can’s slender metal handle, splashing the bright red pool like bloody raindrops.

Bloody raindrops, she thought. And then, in a British accent, Bloody raindrops.

She dropped the can in the trash and paint splattered across her face and shirt. Like blood. 

A pang. This wasn’t sadness—not now, not today—but something deeper. Primal. Blue had been thrilled to find herself pregnant, but a part of her, that part of her most closely aligned with others, felt it was a bit unfair. She was so young. There was so much time. And she hadn’t been trying. So many people did try. And try. And try. Couples worried every option until they were left with nothing.  

In time she would find another man. A husband. A father for her son. Probably Juan. If such an arrangement were possible.

This thought didn’t suddenly arise; it had been there, for some time, like a bruise. And how you seemingly bump a bruise with surprising frequency, often registering not the pain but the coincidence, surprised, alarmed even, to discover that you so often bump yourself in the same spot.

Of course, no, that is not so.

You regularly bump that spot on your body.

Perhaps daily.

And you have since you were a child.

It was because of the bruise that you were more aware of your body. Of this spot you hit.

Blue knew this.

She also knew that she would remain, for some time, a single mother. (And not just because of those issues concerning Juan.) A political party’s idea of societal blight. She long knew what she would do if a day like this came to pass. And that was this: Casually, yet purposefully, live up to the expectations those tired politicians were implanting in the minds of the other party.

No.

That was wrong.

It was the other way around.

Or was it?

Either way, it didn’t matter. She knew what she meant.

On some level, Blue understood overpopulation. Of course adoption was sensible—but that, for some, didn’t make it reasonable. Let alone desirable. Either way, Blue refused to accept the rabidity with which certain people pursued—for it was more than argued—the issue. Such vengeance. Such thoughtless bitterness.

What a reason, she thought, for the world to end. With too many children.

Blue made for the utility sink beneath the studio’s open window. She cupped water from the faucet. She stooped. Wet her face. The water was cool because it had not, after left to run, warmed. Unsure what she had wanted by way of desired effect, she was neither satisfied nor disappointed. Without raising her head she reached for a hand-towel. This was, Blue knew, where Kevin would have left it.

Standing hipshot against the sink, Blue turned. She considered Kevin. There, in a distant corner. Still as stained glass and in the natural light just as bright and just as warm. Her baby moved inside her, roiling like a great wave. 

Is this something we grieve?

She dried her face. As if she had been crying.

Ah, Kevin, and Blue folded the towel into a square, what an incredible question.

The towel was immaculate, but for a small stain. The stain looked like blood, but was almost certainly paint. The rough cotton smelled like fabric softener. She wasn’t reminded of anything.

---

Richard Leise writes and teaches outside Ithaca, NY. A Perry Morgan Fellow from Old Dominion University's MFA program, and recipient of the David Scott Sutelan Memorial Scholarship, his fiction and poetry is featured in numerous publications. His debut novel, Being Dead, was published fall, 2023, and is available where books are sold. His novel Dry The Rain is published Picket Fire Books, fall 2025. His novel will be followed by Dying Man In Living Room, from ELJ Editions, comes out in 2027. He is @coy_harlingen on Twitter.