#(also i promise the last drabble is much softer agdgd)

[theaterism]

Summary: In which attention is earned, and in which paintings are offered.

At a young age, Adeline realized presents were the key to her mother’s affection. Cerise adored beautiful things. Nathaniel gave his wife dazzling gifts, and Cerise responded with delight — gasps and smiles and bright-sounding words. Adeline didn’t need to know what each word meant. She knew the response meant happiness, and it earned warmth.

Cerise spent much of her time entertaining party guests and friends she’d invited over. Spending time with her children wasn’t her highest priority. She had a reputation to keep polished. Adeline longed for attention and closeness, and presents seemed like a reliable strategy to receive it. Her father usually gave Cerise dresses or jewelry or other expensive items. Unfortunately, Adeline couldn’t afford those. She tried grabbing one of her mother’s necklaces and offering it back to her, but the gesture mostly earned laughter. Not quite the response Adeline sought.

But Adeline could paint. She adored painting. She loved the bright colors and the texture on her skin as she smeared them across the paper, cold and liquid smooth. Her fingers gained a near-constant stain — yellows and blues, oranges and purples, all muddied together. When her parents insisted, she’d scrub her hands clean. They’d regain their colors within a day.

Her mother sometimes painted in the garden. She had introduced the hobby to Adeline. She’d painted more in the past, she told her daughter, but no longer had much time for it. With absolute certainty, Adeline decided Cerise would enjoy a gift of art. She began offering paintings to Cerise when she was four. Pride and eagerness shone on her face each time she ran to her mother and held out a new piece.

Flowers became a central theme. One painting featured splotches of pinks and greens and browns, meant to evoke the carnations planted in the garden. She knew her mother cherished them. She hoped the present conveyed a clear message: ‘Look! Here’s something you look after and love. And I painted it, so that means I’m good and lovable as well.’

Her mother always pretended to gasp in awe and admiration. She smiled at Adeline and showered her in compliments and hugged her, and Adeline beamed brighter, her excitement light and bubbly. She gave Cerise many other paintings and drawings and delighted in the affection it earned. At first.

The trouble arose when Adeline got a proper grasp on her magic. She could create moving works of art. This discovery thrilled Adeline, and she imagined her mother would find it exciting as well. It brought her artwork to life, after all. It was more beautiful, which made it better, so it would earn more affection.

She struggled to control her ability at first. It required focus, and focus wasn’t something Adeline had in abundance. She had energy. Still, at six years old, she corralled her attention long enough to paint a brilliant purple butterfly that flitted across the paper. She presented it to Cerise proudly.

Her mother’s response toward the painting was more faded than Adeline expected. Her brow creased; her compliment was delayed and quiet; her embrace felt stiffer than previous ones. Still, she accepted the art.

Not long afterward, Adeline painted a glimmering goldfish. It swam in a page covered in blue. She’d spent more time on it, and she deemed it better than the butterfly — shinier, more lively, more impressive. Surely the first painting simply hadn’t been vibrant enough, hence her mother’s lackluster response. She hoped her mother would appreciate this one more.

Cerise crumpled it and threw it away.

It hurt worse than anything Adeline had felt before.

Her heart clenched in her chest, her throat tight and eyes stinging. She cried. Her courage abandoned her afterward. Her magic abandoned her along with it. For months, her artwork refused to move, no matter how much she tried to encourage it. Her ability had fled deep within her, scared into a safe place.

Eventually, her courage and magic returned. At age seven, she tried again. She painted the carnations in the garden once more. This time, the flowers swayed in a gentle breeze. A bee drifted lazily among the blossoms. Fluffy clouds floated across the sky overhead. It still had the clumsy talent of a child, but it possessed a beauty all its own. This time, Adeline thought, this time she’ll be happy again. She offered it to her mother — cautiously proud, tentative.

An exasperated sigh left Cerise at its arrival. She refused to touch the painting. I simply don’t want it, she informed Adeline, and implored her daughter to keep it and run along to play with her siblings.

Adeline stifled the fresh sting of rejection. She tried to understand — and accept — the reasoning behind her mother’s disapproval, which the woman declined to explain. Adeline connected the dots easily. Her mother despised moving paintings. Adeline only had a vague sense why, but now she knew her mistake. So she painted a nice, non-moving one — an azure vase, with pink carnations carefully arranged within.

She found her mother in the garden, lounging at a table beneath the gazebo, a sleek book in one hand and a champagne glass in the other. She showed the painting to Cerise hesitantly. Her mother didn’t set the book or glass down, but she glanced at it.

Despite its stillness, something had spoiled between them; something deeper and unspoken. Something the painted apology couldn’t fix. Her smile was thin and her “It’s lovely, darling” rang with underlying disinterest, its sincerity shallow and halfhearted, her gaze already returning to the novel. Dismissive.

Adeline took a breath. She told Cerise it was a gift.

“Oh, but you worked so hard on it. You keep it. I’m sure you’ll find a lovely spot for it in your room.”

Adeline returned inside, painting still clutched in her hands, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. The tears had welled and overflowed by the time she found James and Henry in the library — seeking comfort she knew she’d receive, reassurances that flowed naturally between them. Her siblings provided distractions in the form of tag and hide-and-seek and cookies stolen from the kitchen. And she did find a spot for the painting. Not in her room, but in the kitchen — torn up and discarded into the rubbish bin.

She never offered her mother paintings again.