Valley, Road and Tree

Sometimes people are so stupid, Mary Tetsuya thought.

She was standing in front of one of Father's paintings. Valley, Road and Tree it was called. It gave you exactly what it promised. There was a road, and it led past a tree and into a valley. The sky was summer in the painting and the clouds were too.

She supposed it was a good thing they were so stupid. If they bought Father's paintings, then Father would be happy and maybe buy her something. That would be nice. But it was still stupid. She watched a fat old man in an expensive suit blather about Valley, Road and Tree. He was talking about the composition. He thought it showed promise, but that Toshiro Tetsuya was being overtly bombastic.

Mary Tetsuya stared at him the way she would have stared at a retarded kid who'd sat down in the middle of a busy road. Was he actually complaining about the way the tree and the road and the valley were placed? Was he actually, really doing that? He couldn't be. Surely nobody could be that, that...stupid!

*
A memory. Mary, Father and Mother are eating rice waffles slathered thickly with peanut butter, in the real summer which will eventually become the summer of Valley, Road and Tree. Then they play catch. Mary is actually too old to play catch, but she indulges her parents and plays along, and it is fun.

Mary, running down the road. Mary hiding behind the tree which will later become the Tree. Mary peeking from behind the Tree, seeing her father, Toshiro Tetsuya, chase her new mother, then Pauline Smith and now Pauline Tetsuya, (happy days), and Pauline trips and Toshiro falls on top of her and then they are no longer Toshiro Tetsuya and Pauline Smith, they are Father and Mother, and Father and Mary see each other and smile, and this is the moment that is captured in Valley, Road and Tree.

The painting shows an empty road and a solitary tree. Father told her that he and Mother are rolling in the grass just below the canvas, and she, Mary, is hiding behind the tree and thus can't be seen.

*
“But why didn't you paint us in?” Mary asked once. “We were there, but you can't tell that from the picture.” Her finger is pointy, accusatory.

“Well, that was our moment, wasn't it?” Father smiled, ruffled her hair. “Let 'em find their own moments.”

*
And that is why the people are stupid. Buying Valley, Road and Tree won't give you summer. Valley, Road and Tree is not summer. It is not that moment when Mary finally saw that Toshiro had gotten over the death of the mother she could not remember, that he was ready to be Father again. It is not all those days that followed in the sun. It can't give anyone those days, not even to Mary.

But Mary knows where there is a real tree, not a Tree but a tree, and she knows there are summers there without number. She knows Father will take her there again, and other places. Paintings can't compare.