[Other Original] [SWC] The Sun Sets in Marseilles

We sat in an overwhelmingly humid room on the hottest of summer days in Birmingham, Alabama. The year was 2016 and I was just about to turn fifty-two years-old. My hair was speckled with more gray than my natural black, my skin was beginning to wrinkle and spot, and I was trying to ignore the pain creeping up my hands to my wrists. I don't know what I had envisioned for myself when I hit my fifties, but I assure you it wasn't me sitting in a hot room, on a hot day, with an old, frigid attorney I was paying sixty dollars an hour to sweat all over my divorce papers.

Laura sat across from me looking just as miserable. She was in a modest black dress, looking very much like she off to lunch somewhere important after this meeting. Her hair was straightened and sitting just below her chin making her look much more stern than she actually was. It was an odd feeling, having to meet under these conditions nowadays.

Our marriage, like most, was a happy one at some point. But this is how they all end, don't they? In an attorney's office trying to find the most humane way to put them out of their misery?

A solid fifteen minutes passed while the attorney looked over our papers. Laura sat fanning herself while I crossed my arms looking staring up at the beige, cracked ceiling.

"Mr. Crane," the attorney croaked as he cleared his throat "It's my understanding that you have a few paintings in your possession that you created. Do you intend to keep or sell these items?" the attorney asked, finally looking up.

My paintings. It was weird being asked about them in such a formal manner. They were simply a part of me, much like my skin or hair. I didn't see them as a commodity. In truth, my old paintings seemed to be nothing more than placeholders in my basement and attic. I had intended for a while to get rid of them and start fresh with new paintings that I would actually hang up in my home. My plan was to do that once I retired.

"No, they're not for sale," I yawned, "I'll probably throw those old ones away."

Laura stopped fanning herself and looked over at me, wearing an expression I couldn't quite read - anguish? Pity?

"You are most certainly not going to be throwing those paintings away. I like the one of the sunset you did during our honeymoon in Marseilles. Don't throw that one away," she stated, beginning to rapidly fan herself once more.

"I don't remember you ever taking a big interest in my paintings," I scoffed back. Our attorney sucked in his breath, looking slowly at Laura and then over to me to see if this would lead to a much bigger fight as these small ones always do. First we're talking about who gets the crock pot and the next thing you know we're fighting over why her sister Cathy got a free pass to smoke in the house while I had to pay an extra goddamn sin tax in my own home just to have one.

"Oh, Samuel, attentiveness was never really your strong suit, was it?" she sighed.

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I was attentive. To be a painter, you have to be. That's how you take a painting from just a picture and elevate it to an experience.

I remember that sunset in Marseilles like it was yesterday. We were staying in a small apartment off the coast - we were young and poor and in love, so the place was dirt cheap. I mean the-plumbing-didn't-work-half-the-time cheap. That first night though, was magic.

The sky was blue, but a deep mystical blue with tints of purple and it began to fade into the most striking shade of pink that glided across the sky. A few clouds sat in the distance, and the ocean was soaking up all of the sky's colors. Getting that on canvas was nothing short of a miracle when you consider that like the master painters before me, I had no picture to reference. Just my memory of how I felt when I looked at the sky that night. The night that followed our "I do's" and all the plans we made about how our lives would turn out from that day forward.

Laura was going to save up a lot of money by working two jobs so we could take a year off and spend it abroad. Maybe in France like we were now, or the rainforests of Costa Rica looking for birds and sloths. I was going to work as a finance manager at one of the big national banks and buy her pretty boots to wear all over Europe. After that maybe we'd even have a kid - a boy named Michael or a girl named Jane, after her favorite band: Jane's Addiction. I thought it sounded morbid, she laughed and called me a square.

Our first day in Marseilles was spent on the beach, eating grapes and brie while we watched the boats sail across the sea. We'd talk for hours and stop every now and then to look at our matching rings and smile like two love-drunk teenagers. Later that night we drank what we thought was the best red wine we ever had and danced to the soft music making its way through our open window from the beautiful five-star hotel somewhere down the street. My hair was still black, and hers long, curly, and wild. Our skin had yet to wrinkle and was smooth to the touch as we swayed along to the tempo like the waves in the sea, as close as we'd ever be.

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She may say that I'm not attentive, but I know there's a nice empty spot above her bookshelf where she can hang the painting of the sunset in Marseilles.
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