Title: Picture Perfect
Author:Sabrinasmom3
Rating:PG
Disclaimer:I don't own Joan of Arcadia or the actors, blah, blah blah.
Summary:Luke and Grace do normal, everyday things together that end up meaning much more and that someone else sees as picture perfect.
A couple weeks later, Grace came home from Luke's carrying her painting. She was too busy trying to decide where in her room she wanted to put it to anticipate what might be going on inside the house. As soon as the front door clicked closed, Grace's mom started calling her. "Gracie, come here. Spend some time with your mom. Where have you been?" She staggered out into the foyer, a glass of wine in one hand and the other clutching at anything nearby to steady her. Grace started toward the stairs, but her mother intercepted her. "What have you got there, sweetie?" Grace bowed her head and mumbled, "It's just a painting, Mom. I'm going to bed." "Not so fast, let me see." But Grace wasn't ready to share something that meant as much to her as this painting did with her intoxicated mother. As Grace tried to push past her, her mom got a glimpse of the painting and got agitated, "Gracie, that looks like you! Why can't I see? What is it, a nude portrait? What did you do pose naked?" Grace tucked the painting under her arm and started up the stairs, but for a staggering drunk, her mom was pretty quick. As Grace brought her foot down on the third step, her mom grabbed the corner of the painting and pulled it with surprising strength. Grace tried to hold on to it, but in doing so, she was thrown off balance. Grace started to fall backwards down the stairs. In what seemed to her like slow motion, Grace fell back into her mother. Her mother let go of the painting as the two of them traveled toward the floor. Grace was still pulling on the painting so when her mother let go, Grace unintentionally pulled the painting forward, smacking herself in the face with the corner of the frame. That happened about the same time that Grace and her mother hit the floor. Between the force of hitting the floor and the momentum of the painting, Grace lost her grip and the painting when sailing. Although Grace couldn't see where it landed, she could hear it. A rush of panic and sorrow swept over her as she heard the distinct sound of tearing canvas.
Grace jumped to her feet, scooped the painting off the floor where it landed after hitting the corner of the table, and ran up to her room. She locked the door as she heard her mom's shaky footsteps following her up the stairs. Grace threw her headphones on, but was unable to block out her mother's slurred rantings. She was going on about how posing nude was as bad as being a stripper, which usually led to prostitution and how could she do that to her father and didn't she have any sense of responsibility to the family name and to her father's congregation and on and on and on. Grace sat on the bed with her hands pressed against her headphones trying not to hear. She looked through her blurred eyes at the slash in her painting and felt as bad as if she herself had been cut.
Like a toy whose batteries are running out, Grace's mom's words started slowing down and running together and the volume of her voice became less and less thunderous until eventually she became inaudible. Grace listened as her mom leaned against the wall, then slowly slid down to sit on the floor and finally slumped over. Grace carefully opened the door. Her mom was sprawled out on the floor across the threshold of the door. Grace quickly grabbed her jacket and her painting, stepped over her unconscious mother and hurried out of the house.
