LEILA
.
.
It was a family.
A woman, her back partly turned, walking away. A man, her hand outstretched, pleading and two small boys, standing beside him, looking lost.
A mother leaving with a daughter? No, a mother leaving a man, with his two sons.
Their father, and my mother.
The woman who left, the man she left behind, and the two little boys watching.
His pain.
Gerald's pain.
Their history, laid bare in brushstrokes.
My eyes moved to the next painting.
A lady, standing under the glare of the sun, at a bus station.
Her shoulders slumped just slightly, a bag at her feet, just standing there.
Waiting, looking and it felt familiar.
Horribly, terrifyingly familiar.
The angle of her head, the way the light hit her hair and then the realization slammed into me, st
