The remains

Chapter 21

The spacious kitchen was something out of Town amp; Country Magazine . The farmhouse that contained it had to be over a century old. Most of the stainless steel appliances were new, no doubt the spoils of Franny’s hard work and talent. You couldn’t look at a single wall and not spot at least a reminder of the success the autistic savant had become in the many years I’d known of him, and the seven years I’d truly come to know him.

Even inside the kitchen, the walls and shelves were ripe with framed sketches, limited prints, original canvases of every type, style and theme. From crazy eye-dancing abstracts to serene landscapes, to black-and-white self-portraits to pencil sketch studies of his mother engaged in various tasks like cooking, clothes pinning laundry on the outside line, or working in the vegetable garden.

The one image that provoked skin-deep chills was a simple drawing of Caroline. She was standing alone at the edge of the gravel drive, long hair blowing back across her face by a storm-driven wind produced by blue-black clouds visible on the horizon. It was a scene that evoked Wyeth, but that hit me deep inside since its true-life subject was sitting directly in front of me.

We sat with our steaming mugs of tea.

I attempted to sip mine. But it was still too hot.

Caroline smiled graciously.

“So what’s on your mind, young lady?”

I guess when you’ve gone beyond 70 in years lived, 42 seems almost adolescent.

“Are you aware that over the past two days Franny’s given me two of his paintings?”

I looked for a sign of surprise on her face. An upturned brow, a flushing of the cheeks. I got neither as she calmly sipped her tea.

“I’m aware that Franny has been working feverishly. I see that he brings his paintings along with him to the art center. But I didn’t know he was painting them for you, Rebecca.” She peered down at her tea, then up at me again. “Why do you think he would do something like that?”

“That’s what I came here to find out. So far this week he’s been at the studio everyday, all day. Today will make the third day in a row. A record for him. And from what you’re telling me, he has another new painting with him today.”

My stomach did a little flip when I said it. I couldn’t imagine what kind of image I would have to confront when I made my return to the studio later that morning. What word might I see buried inside it? Which one of the three out of five senses left?

“If Francis wants to give you his paintings,” Caroline said after a time, “then that’s his business. I have no problem with it.”

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I love Franny and I’m honored to be gifted his work. To be frank, I’ve learned from his style.”

Caroline shook her head, pursed her lips.

“Then what’s the problem?”

I took another sip of my still too hot tea.

“Has Franny been acting a little strange lately?” I nervously asked.

Caroline broke out in laughter.

“He’s autistic, Rebecca.” She giggled. “He’s always acting strangely.”

I was more than a little taken aback at her response. And I think she knew it. Because she started laughing even harder, from deep inside the raspy lungs of a former smoker.

“It’s a joke,” she said, eyes wide. “Get it? Strange? Autistic? When you stand in my shoes, young lady, you don’t expect normalcy from a boy like Francis. You expect something new and weird and quite wonderful with each new day.”

I couldn’t help but take notice of her referring to a man pushing fifty as a boy. But then Franny was a boy. He would never grow old despite his body.

“Listen Rebecca,” she said, “I can tell something’s got you upset, so perhaps I should explain a little about Francis’s condition. It might shed some light, help you to understand why he does the things he does-why he paints the way he does.”

I nodded. It was worth a shot.

She sat back, both hands wrapped around her mug, deep eyes peering into it as though it were a crystal ball that revealed the past instead of the future.

“Not long after Franny was born he was diagnosed with retardation,” she said in an almost exasperated tone. “As harsh as that sounds even today, I can’t begin to tell you how devastating it sounded almost a half century ago.”

“I thought he was autistic?”

“They didn’t know what autism was. Back then, they often confused it for insanity. In those days, the most my husband and I could expect for Francis was for him to perhaps live a relatively comfortable existence inside a facility. Or what they used to refer to as an asylum back in the day. But that would have been a disaster. Autism was only one of his problems. He was also affected by heart and lung problems. Congenital ailments that still plague him and force the daily intake of blood thinners.” She paused, eyes still focused on her tea. “In all honesty, Rebecca, Franny is not long for this world.”

Her revelation hit me like a punch to the belly. Franny had always seemed so healthy to me. I also could not imagine a world without him.

“In any case,” she said, “I- we -resolved to raise Francis here, on the farm. Give him as normal a life as possible, for as long as his life lasted.” Finally she raised her face and looked me directly in the eye. “And thank God we did. Because it didn’t take long for us to discover that the doctors had been all wrong.”

I wasn’t sure I understood her, so I asked her to explain. But she got up from out of her chair.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ve got something to show you.”

I stood up, began to follow her.

“What exactly did the doctors have wrong?” I asked while being led to an old wood door at the far side of the kitchen.

She brushed back her long hair, opened the door to reveal a dark basement. Reaching out for the string that ignited an exposed overhead light bulb, she said, “Francis might have been different, but he was far from retarded. Down in this basement is the evidence.”

Turning, she wiped away a spider web and began to climb down the old wood plank stairs.

Ever the cautious twin sister, I followed.