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The Misunderstood Promise

Dee’s Story

By Ruth RamblesPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
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The Misunderstood Promise
Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

(Part four of a short story series, based on writing prompts. Written while trying to learn to fight brain fog and perfectionism... and my ADHD. My ADHD was starting to put up a fight by this point.)

Dee was tapping her foot impatiently by the time her brother opened the door. She still wasn’t used to waiting to be let in to his terrace apartment; he never used to lock the door when he was home! “Nice to see you too” he said with a chuckle as she stormed past him, barely waiting for him to open the door.

She wasted no time in getting to the point, “I need to learn how to paint flowers.” she said as she paced back and forth across the width of the tiny living room. She’d barely kept it in long enough for him to close the front door. Small talk was not on her agenda for the day.

She slowed her pacing to watch her brother’s face as her request sunk in. Amusement gave way to surprise, followed by something she didn’t quite recognize; hesitation... maybe even fear. He turn his head slightly, avoiding her gaze. “You know that’s illegal. And why now? You’ve never had any interest in painting before.” Exactly, she thought. I never had any need before.

The momentary silence felt like a lifetime as memories of easier times begged them both for attention. Her brother looked at her. “What’s going on?” he asked gently. She flopped onto his sofa with an exasperated sigh. Why did he have to always be the calm one? He was supposed to be the little brother but anyone who met them would assume otherwise. They were only born two years apart but he’d somehow turned into a calm, responsible adult after the world had turned upside down, while she had become more impulsive and impatient than ever before.

“Its going to be a disaster.” she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “The wedding, I mean. Although you could apply that statement to my life in general I suppose.” She glanced at her brother as he maneuvered a chair and sat, facing her, waiting for her to fill in the blanks. “I’m a florist, Shay. Or I *was.* Do you have any idea how it feels after a decade of organizing flowers for other people’s weddings and now it’s finally meant to be my turn and...” she paused as emotions started to squeeze her vocal chords, turning her voice to barely a whisper as she continued. “...what do I have to give her if I can’t even give her flowers on our wedding day?”

She watched as her brother tried to find the right words. He knew he had to tread carefully. He cared, she knew he cared - and he wanted her to be happy - but it was no secret that he wasn’t a huge fan of her fiancé. “I’m sorry.” he started, his face confirming that he meant it. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I couldn’t paint anymore. I know flowers were your paint.”

She braced herself, waiting for what she knew had to be coming next. He’d given her this lecture so many times that she could practically hear it without his mouth even opening. *Things are different now, Dee. You’ve got to be careful, Dee. You’ll get yourself thrown in jail, Dee. Yada Yada Yada. * Her brother looked uncomfortable, sending her resistance. “You know it’s her job to report anyone who tries to go back, right?”

Of course she knew. Her fiancé, Lara, worked for the government. The government that had worked to keep its citizens in the dark while an environmental crisis like no other had slowly taken hold. Parks and sidewalks had been scattered with the bodies of birds, dead from starvation before the government had even admitted that dozens of insect species had been wiped out by rising temperatures and plummeting air quality. The government that had decided that the chances of turning things around had been so small that it wasn’t worth even trying. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The most mind boggling part of it all was that the government had started taking action against those who did want to try. And Dee had wanted to try.

She barely had time to register her own emotions before they erupted. “And there it is!” she exclaimed, suddenly on her feet again. “You don’t trust her to choose me over her job! You act like she’s a sellout because she didn’t resign when the new laws came in but you seem to have no trouble taking government grants for your censored art. Your friends painted bees, flowers, EVERYTHING we needed to fight for. They went to prison for taking a stand and you just painted swirls and splotches while the world imploded. What happened to the Shay I had to bail out after you vandalized a billboard, or stole the college mascot or whatever other hair-brained, reckless thing you thought up after a few drinks? Why can’t you break the rules for *me*?”

Dee stared at her brother, expecting him to be upset, defensive, angry, *something*... but he just sat there silently. His face showed concern, but little else. She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him until he responded. *How can he sit there calmly like while the world falls apart? Why won’t he *do* something? Why won’t he help me?*

Dee was done waiting; she would help herself. She stormed across the room and into the study he’d converted to a tiny art studio, slamming the door behind her. How hard could it be to paint flowers? She hunted around for a blank canvas - there were none - and instead chose one already covered in shades of blue. *Perfect,* she thought with a determined smile, *I guess he’s helping me whether he likes it or not!* She placed the canvas onto the easel and continued searching for supplies. She confidently selected a paintbrush and three tubes of paint; she figured with her skill level it probably wasn’t worth fussing over such decisions. Rejecting her brother’s paint encrusted palettes, she instead opted to make do with a scrap of paper that had fallen out of the overfilled bin. She wondered, not for the first time, how her brother worked in such a cramped and disordered space.

After a momentary hesitation, Dee started adding paint. Stroke after stroke of white on blue; she was pleased with how quickly a relatively respectable daisy started to appear before her. She wondered how long her brother would give her to cool off. *He probably thinks I’m sulking.* She wiped the paintbrush on a blank patch of paper before loading it up with yellow. *I know, I know... I’m getting white in the yellow. Maybe if you were in here you could show me how to wash the brush properly!* she argued with her brother silently. A yellow center added, Dee admired her work. *It’s a good thing I like daisies best and not hydrangeas! Lara on the other hand....* Her fiancé had always admired the marigolds most when she had visited Dee in her little shop. Dee had planned on pairing the two together for their wedding. They were unfortunately a little more complicated to paint than daisies though.

It still didn’t feel real to Dee that she couldn’t go get an actual marigold to paint from. The flowers hadn’t been extinct for long, but she suspected it would always feel like a bad dream she would eventually wake up from. Perhaps more incredible, however, was the lack of photos of flowers. The government - under the guise of helping humanity to look forward instead of back - had done its best to remove all memory prompts of the before times. Trillions of files, photos, paintings, books, records of all kinds had been seized in raids. Dee fought back tears as she layered petal after petal onto the canvas. *This flower is blurry enough without looking through tears,* she thought to herself. She could remember pretty well what the flowers looked like, but the paint was not behaving like she expected. There was no depth. It needed shadows.

A tap on the door startled her. “Dee? Do you want pasta for dinner?” She couldn’t decide if she was grateful or annoyed. She *was* hungry, but she couldn’t help feeling like it was condescending for him to assume that food would improve her mood. She said nothing and continued staring at the yellow blob in front of her. *What would Shay do if he were actually helping?* she went over to his desk and started rifling through the drawers. She’d seen him mix pigment powder into his paints when he’d wanted to tweak the colors. “Bingo” she whispered, finding the right drawer.

She began pulling out little tubs haphazardly, reading the labels as she went. Some were unrecognizable to her, but others were more helpful; cobalt blue, cadmium yellow... and finally something useful, cadmium red. She’d never paid much attention in art classes, but basic color theory hadn’t eluded her. This would deepen the color at the base of the petals. She opened the container and attempted to tap a little of the powder onto a new paper palette. “Crap. Too much, Dee.” she chastised herself. A quarter of the container had emptied itself onto the paper; with her help of course. As she funneled the pigment back into the tub, she noticed small objects scattered throughout it. Curious, she dropped one into a glass of water that sat on the desk. The water turned red from the pigment that had coated the item; she had to fish it out with her fingers before she could look at it.

She was still holding it when Shay brought in the steaming peace offering. “When were you going to tell me?” she shot the words across the room, accusingly. The bowl hit the ground with crash, splitting into jagged pieces as macaroni flew in all directions. Her brother didn’t even flinch at the sound, his eyes darting between her face, the pumpkin seed in her right hand, and the phone in her left. She was fuming.

Shay took a step towards her, still oblivious to the starchy mess. “Don’t do anything stupid...” he started, before running out of words. She stared at him in disbelief, still trying to piece together clues she’d missed. The sudden straight laced attitude. The cautious art. The locked doors. Yes, he’d changed... not by ceasing his reckless rebellion but by learning to hide it.

“Stupid? STUPID?” she couldn’t believe it was him telling *her* to not be stupid. “Excuse me, but which one of us has...” she trailed off, suddenly concerned with the thickness of the walls. “A painting for my fiancé is a night in jail at worst. But seeds... I wouldn’t have been able to bail you out if somebody else had discovered these. You’re lucky I found them in time. Lara said she can...” she watched the color drain from her brother’s face as he realized what she had done. Doubt started to creep in. “...Lara said she can protect us...”

Dee stood frozen in place as Shay grabbed a backpack and headed out into the night, slowing down only to hug her tightly. “It’s ok” he said. But as the sound of sirens approached, she realized it wasn’t. *”Us”...she said she’d protect “us”*. As the front door shattered, she realized... that hadn’t included Shay.

Short Story
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Ruth Rambles

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