The studio of the manor was quiet—so quiet that all Anita could hear was the sound of her paintbrush moving on the canvas in front of her, dotting the background sound of the spring birds and running water. She was alone like she loved to be when working on one of her projects, but she was uncomfortable. She couldn’t get the sick feeling she had in the pit of her stomach to go away. The sound of the moving river taunted her, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking out the open window at the edge of the room.

The trees hosted green leaves again, and the birds were hopping from branch to branch bellowing sweet songs from the depths of their bellies. In the rejuvenated estate waking up from the harsh winters, all she could see from the window of her studio was the hint of the flowing river in the background.

A frown formed on Anita’s face and a sick feeling in her stomach made her drop her paintbrush. She walked over to the window, holding the edge of the sill as she stared out into the estate. Her half-finished landscape painting of stormy waters waited patiently for her to return. She wasn’t used to the peace and quiet in the manor, usually, a person—her husband—was with her, filling the halls and corridors of the manor with the sounds of his one-sided discussions about his projects.

Anita was alone this spring, and loneliness consumed her.

She removed her weight from the window sill, moving to draw the curtains closed. Her chest was starting to feel heavy, and tears were stinging her eyes. The memories from the last few years kept playing in her mind as she thought of the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys.’

*

“Come on, let’s take a closer look,” Laurence insisted, grabbing Anita’s small hand. He pulled her along with him towards the River. They stopped at the edge, looking out into the green-brown river.

“It looks dangerous, doesn’t it?” Laurence leaned forward, staring at the fast-moving waters. “It looks like something you would paint,” he said, looking down at his wife with a smile. He was a tall lanky man with a mess of curls, while his wife, Anita, was on the petite side.

Anita nodded at his words as she looked around. “I like it here,” she announced, making Laurence smile down at her. They had bought the estate on a whim. Anita had complained about the price and how silly it was to buy such a big house when they were just two people, but she was starting to warm up to the place.

“We might have to fence off the river when we have kids,” Laurence said.

“Kids?” Anita frowned, making Laurence laugh.

“Kids. You know, miniature people,” Laurence went on, pretending not to understand Anita’s shock.

“No,” the woman said, shaking her head. Her husband pouted, pulling her to his chest. He hugged her, rocking her side to side with him.

“Come on now—"

“I don’t want kids, Laurence.”

Laurence sighed, kissing his wife’s forehead as they stayed quiet. He left it at that. Laurence was never the one to push.

*

Anita now wished she had said yes, and that they fenced off the river. If they had, maybe Laurence wouldn’t be dead now.

Laurence was gone. She knew she should move on, but how could she when everything in the estate reminded her of him? How could she when the river that flowed freely for two seasons of the year taunted her with the sound of running water?

With a sigh, Anita left the studio and made her way down the stairs. The sound of the running water wasn’t within earshot anymore, but she still heard it ringing in her head. She heard it when she washed the dishes and poured herself a glass of water. She heard it when she showered—she heard it everywhere.

She wandered about the house, stopping to look at the paintings on the hallway walls. A sad smile formed on her lips as she reached to brush the canvas of the painting in front of her. It was one of Laurence’s. It was right beside a painting she had done of the front view of the manor. His abstract surrealist style contrasted with her hyper-realistic one.

A pained chuckle escaped her lips as she remembered when she first met Laurence. The lean tall brown-haired man with big bright eyes had stood out in the crowd at the after party of an art exhibition. She had felt drawn to him, and before she knew it, she was resting on a wall in a corner with him. She listened to him talk about Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovic. She listened to him talk about ‘crazy art’—performance art. Somehow, the way Laurence gushed about people pulling scrolls out of their bodies, suspending themselves from ceilings and wrapping themselves up with everything from sackcloth to tissue paper made it sound like ‘proper art’ to Anita.

*

“There’s a lot to express that can’t be contained by paint and canvas,” Laurence said, looking out into the crowd.

“Do you think what was expressed in I Love America and America Loves Me could be expressed on canvas?” Laurence asked, looking at Anita who was just staring at him in awe.

“The man locked himself in a room with a wolf and sack-cloth for a few days,” Anita said. She was clearly horrified, but Laurence just smiled, nodding his head as he grinned.

“Exactly!” he said, like his point was clear as day.

He was hard to keep up with, discussion-wise, but Anita found herself enjoying his rambling and odd quirks.

*

After the party, they didn’t see each other for months, but they kept in touch through letters and phone calls, discussing each other’s projects and talking about their dreams for the future. They developed a bond, started a romance, and along the line Anita found respect for Laurence and his work. Though, Laurence never stopped poking fun at her initial elitist attitude even after they got married.

The sad smile remained on Anita’s lips when she took her hand away from the canvas. She wandered down the hallway, pausing at the door of Laurence’s studio. It was mid-afternoon now, and Anita wanted to be anywhere but his studio, but she couldn’t help herself.

He’s gone. Anita said to herself as she opened the door and walked into the spacious room. At first glance, it didn’t look like an art studio. There were no hanging canvases—no sign of paint stains or proper equipment one would associate with an artist. There didn’t need to be. This was Laurence’s performance studio. This had been where he recorded his dances and took photos of his poses. He used materials that one would be more likely to associate with craftsmen to compliment his body as an art tool.

As Anita walked around the room, she noticed the pieces of yellow fabric and strings of rope on the floor. Anita’s eyes teared up as she remembered his last project.

“Why did he do it?” She asked in a soft voice. Her questioned echoed through the studio. The question mark hung in the air long after she spoke. Anita was unable to stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks. She rubbed her eyes with the base of her palm as memories of her husband flooded her mind. They were memories of Laurence painting. Laurence dancing. Laurence being Alive.

*

“Maybe you should take a break,” Anita said, watching as her husband moved around his studio with measuring tape. The man stopped in his tracks, to turn towards the studio’s door. He grinned, walking up to her and taking her hand with his free one.

“Come help me,” he insisted, pulling her to the center of the room. He handed her the end of the measuring tape, raising his hand as a gesture for her to wait as he walked over to the window to pull aside the curtains to let in more light. His studio was a mess. There were cuts of fabric and pieces of wires scattered on the floor. Laurence had a performance in the next month, and he was prepping for that.

He came back, taking a hold of the other end of the tape. “Just stand there. I want to figure out the space I’ll use,” he said, counting his steps and he took steps backward.

Anita smiled, chuckling a bit when her husband lost count and started from the top. This is ridiculous. She thought, but she kept smiling. It was odd. Her husband was odd, but that was why she loved him.

*

Laurence had been everything to her. For ten years they lived life together, and for the last three years of his life, Anita supported him as he went through the pains of the gradual loss of the power and sensation from his neck down to his lower limbs.

It had been at a performance arts festival. Things had gone wrong on a technical level and he had fallen and hit his neck on the podium on the stage below, breaking a section of his spine. Anita could remember the blood draining from her face and her head buzzing as the audience yelled and screamed. He had lived, but with progressive paraplegia.

It had been devastating, but he had been alive.

Had been.

Anita had been taking care of him. She had been there for him. She didn’t understand why he had done what he did. Laurence had gone to the riverside like he did every day for the last few years of his life. Laurence said that he liked the scenery—that he liked to observe the landscape he couldn’t dance on or paint anymore, and Anita believed him. Maybe it was true and false at the same time. Maybe he enjoyed looking on at the river, but the pain of never being able to paint it, and never being able to use its bank as a stage for his performances anymore must have outweighed his love for the place.

While Laurence drowned that day, Anita had been in the studio working on a painting. If she had just looked out of the window, she would have noticed that he was missing, and he would have been saved. It hurt that she hadn’t, and it hurt that she knew Laurence had probably died slowly—from drowning and fatal wounds from the rapids.

“Laurence,” Anita called out, as a little irrational part of her wished that he’d pop out from behind the door rambling on about a painting or performance he was working on. Nothing happened, and Anita just smiled to herself—the edge of her lips hurting from the effort she was putting into it.

Anita kept wandering about the house, and depending on where she was, the burbling sound of the river either intensified or dimmed. The water moved fast, and the chirping of birds and nearby animals added to the background noise. Anita kept wondering about that day that Laurence had decided to end it all.

*

“Anita.” She turned at the sound of her husband calling her name. Laurence was in his wheelchair at the entrance of their art studio.

He looked drained, but Anita didn’t point it out because he was touchy about it.

“I’m going out for some fresh air,” Laurence announced, managing a smile. It looked forced, and that broke Anita’s heart.

she muttered, walking up to him in the entrance. She leaned over, pressing a kiss to his forehead as she hugged him. Laurence hugged her back, wincing in pain at the effort it took. They stayed like that for a long while, and for a moment Anita was worried. He was holding on to her like it was the last time he ever would.

“Alight.” She had pushed the thought to the back of her mind, telling herself that she was imagining things.

Now, she wished she hadn’t doubted her intuition. Maybe if she had spoken to him or followed him, he wouldn’t be gone.

*

Now, she wished she hadn’t doubted her intuition. Maybe if she had spoken to him or followed him, he wouldn’t be gone.

All the signs had been there. Her husband’s smile and bright eyes had dimmed, and he had grown frustrated with himself and her. He would call her worries about his health nagging, but he would double back almost immediately to apologize and beg her not to leave him. He broke down in tears at random moments, and sometimes he wouldn’t talk or eat for days at a time.

He could still paint, but it was painful, and his doctor advised against it. Dancing and moving around was out of the question, but sometimes Anita would find him crouched on the floor in his studio, trying to do something—anything. To her, it looked like Laurence didn’t see himself as Laurence. It looked like he perceived his world to be smaller—less rich—and it upset him. It didn’t help that his condition grew worse with time. The pain in his limbs gradually faded to give way numbness and immobility.

A lot of people told her that it had to be a mistake and that Laurence couldn’t have done so intentionally—moving his wheelchair around was painful enough for him, and for a while, she agreed with them, but as time went on Anita came to terms with the truth. With the little mobility he had left, Laurence could, and probably did move his wheelchair. The riverbank was too rocky, and it wasn’t steep so there was no way the chair moved on its own and tossed the man into the river. The police had theorized murder, but there was no one in the walled estate apart from Anita and Laurence. The police had tagged her as the prime suspect, and no matter how insulting it was to be accused of murdering the person she loved, it just didn’t matter to Anita.

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that Laurence was dead.

Anita found herself walking out of the main building and wandering around the compound. She walked over to the small garden—standing by the well as she watched the birds in the trees hop about. She soon walked away, making her way towards the river.

With every step, her heart rate quickened. The sound of moving water became louder and clearer, and before Anita knew it, she was standing at the edge of the river—her shoes getting wet from the waves that waxed and waned as if teasing her.

“You took him away from me,” she said, staring down at her muddied reflection in the river.

Her reflection was blurred by the tears in her eyes. She remembered Laurence too well. His big goofy grins, curly hair, thick brows, and soft face. Her husband. She still couldn’t believe that her husband was really gone, and that he had been for over six months. It felt like everything had happened yesterday.

Anita blinked back the tears, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm as she took in deep breaths. She was cold now. The water had wet her shoes and socks, and her tears were making the wind feel cool on her face. She stood up straight, looking out into the horizon. The river rapids were not too far away. The chirping and croaking of birds and toads mixed with the sound of water slapping against rocks filled Anita’s ears.

The river mocked her by refusing to give her a moment of silence in the area that was essentially her husband’s grave. The water was calling out to her, and for a moment, she answered it. She walked into the river until she was waist-deep, but try as it might, the current couldn’t topple her over and trash her body around like it had her husband’s. Anita knew that if she ventured deeper, she would surely get knocked off her feet.

Anita bit down on her lower lip, nibbling it as the sound of her heart pounding filled her ears.

Laurence’s body had been washed downstream with his wheelchair just meters away from his body.

As Anita continued to take steps forward, and as the moving waters reached her waistline and pushed against her body, she wondered if her body would wash up there too.