Room Nine

Room nine, two twenty-six. Another leak to mark and fix. I wheel the ladder past the frames, white gloves folded in my belt. The water finds the newest work, one silver line the ceiling dealt. I lift the canvas from its hooks, then see the kitchen painted there: the yellow cup, the crooked blind, my winter coat across a chair. Her surname on the little card is one I taught myself not to say. The man inside the painted door has both his hands turned away. I was hanging in Room Nine, every coward inch of me, in the coat I wore the evening she walked out at seventeen. I was hanging in Room Nine, under glass and public light. She had painted what I told her didn’t happen that night. The roof alarm begins to blink. I should take the piece downstairs. Instead I set it on the bench and count the brushstrokes on the stairs. Behind the frame, in pencil grey, a studio note runs down the wood: “Keep the left side unfinished. He might turn around. He could.” I am hanging in Room Nine, but she left a space for me, past the coat and painted doorway, past the man I chose to be. I am hanging in Room Nine. Rain is reaching for the frame. She remembered every detail. She still left room for change. I wrap the painting in dry cloth. My hand stops at the storage key. Her number’s on the shipping form, not hidden, not erased for me. The thunder shakes the hanging wire. The whole room answers in its way. I put the canvas by the office where the morning staff will stay. I was hanging in Room Nine, with my back toward the hall. Now the first thing I will tell her is I finally saw it all. Leave me hanging in Room Nine. Let them read her name, not mine. When the front desk lights at eight, I’ll call from Room Nine. No speech rehearsed. No better line. Just: “I saw it.” Room nine.