A Painting of a Memory
I woke up to my boy with the bread staring at me, a smile playing on his lips.
"Happy birthday, beautiful," he says, kissing each knuckle on my hand. I touched his face and sighed. So many memories fighting to get through, each hitting the mental barricade I had created over the years to block them out.
I sit up and yawn. Twenty seven years of age. Wow. Nine years since... NO! Not today, not now. I get up and go downstairs to find Haymitch and my mother waiting for me with a cake. I honestly don't know how to react, seeing her after so long. After a few tense moments of just staring at each other, I run into her arms that were held out wide. Oh my goodness, a mothers hug—MY mother's hug. A few years ago I wouldn't have been able to even have someone mention her; the memories were still too strong in my mind. But after years of mellowing with Peeta has softened me. I just needed her right now, and this must be so hard for her too, after originally leaving because she couldn't stand the memories. She left, so I stayed. I realised she had started crying, and so held her tighter. Eventually we let go and she was laughing and crying at the same time. She cupped my face in her hands and kissed my forehead.
Haymitch was over in the corner with Peeta, uncomfortable with all the emotions flying around.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart. Someone," he shot daggers at Peeta, and the accused smiled, "insisted that I get up at the godforsaken hour to say hello to you. Don't know why when I would've seen you later anyway, waste of my time," he said grouchily, but I could tell that he was happy to be here with us in his own sort of grumpy way.
I turn my full attention to the cake that Peeta must have baked and decorated because it was just exquisite. Two towers of chocolately goodness, covered with a smooth rich caramel icing, with elegant flowers decorating the outside and one huge flower, a type that grows in the meadow that I was admiring the other day, standing up in the middle. It was gone before the hour was out.
Haymitch left just after that, muttering something about everything being "too happy" for his liking. My mother took this as her cue, and left to see everyone in the town to catch up. Peeta took me out into the meadow and we had a picnic there, eating cheesy buns and cookies. With the sun on me, I lay back and closed my eyes. Peeta moved closer and put my head on his lap. This was starting to feel far too much like the afternoon of the roof on the training centre. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. I opened my eyes, looking up and seeing Peeta's face framed by the blue sky.
"I want prim to be here," I croaked out. It wasn't the first time I had said that, but it didn't change the feeling of sorrow that was building up in me. Peeta studied my face, and must have decided that this was something not to be ignored. He gently stood, and helped me up. We gathered up our picnic, my curiosity winning out as I followed him home.
"What are you doing Peeta?" I asked him, thoroughly confused by our abrupt change in schedule. He simply took my hand and we stayed like that, walking home with the sun on our backs. We entered the house, and Peeta walked into his painting studio with me following curiously behind.
He stood by a painting and bade me to take off the sheet covering it. I gasped and the material fell onto the ground, making a soft thump as it reached the ground.
I was staring at a picture from my memory.
It was Prim, the night of her tenth birthday. She was sleeping peacefully in front of the fire in our old house with her new goat, Lady. Her innocent face was smooth and a smiled caressed her lips as the fire glinted off her golden hair. Her arm was around the goat; Lady still had her pink ribbon around her neck. A worn out rug was underneath them. The whole scene looked like it had been taken out of my memories and pasted onto the canvas with rich and fine paints—Peeta.
I look up at him and just nod as the stream of tears leak through my eyes and run down my face; tears of sadness, tears of longing, tears of happiness. Peeta walks over to me and wraps his strong arms around me as he explains. "I was going to show you later on in the evening, but I think it is better now." He pauses, "Remember that night in the cave, when you told me that story about how you got Prim's goat? Well, a couple of weeks ago I had a dream; it was just you standing in the doorway, watching Prim sleep with her goat in front of the fire, just the way you explained. The look on your face, Katniss, it was just… you looked ten years younger, so happy and content. It wasn't my mind making it up, no. It was because you were looking over your little sister. That image of you stayed with me, but I couldn't figure out how to make it reality. So I decided to paint your memory; the next best thing. I needed to see that side of you again in real life. And guess what?" He looks down at me, "When you were looking at the painting, it was there. Tinged with sadness and longing, but it was there." He finished.
I didn't move, so neither did he. We stayed like that, his arms around me while I rested my head against his chest and stared at the scene. I imprinted it into my brain, so when I closed my eyes, I could see it as if I had my eyes open.
Finally, after night fall and the light in the room was dimming slowly, I tore my eyes away from the painting. "Thank you," I manage to croak out. He looked at me with his blue eyes and kissed me.