The Page She Almost Threw Away
The roof was wrong.
Jillian leaned back in her chair.
She leaned forward again.
Still wrong.
She turned the paper slightly, which made the roof look better but caused the tree to lean in a worrying direction.
“Oh, honestly.”
Beside her elbow sat a small collection of rubber crumbs.
Beside those sat her tea.
The tea had stopped being warm some time ago.
It had apparently decided she was going to be a while.
Jillian had meant to draw a little cottage.
Nothing enormous.
A roof. A door. A garden path.
Somewhere she could imagine a person arriving at the end of a long day.
But the chimney leaned, the windows didn’t quite match, and the tree beside the house had developed a bend she hadn’t intended.
She rubbed out one window.
The paper grew fuzzy.
She tried the roof again.
Now it looked heavy.
She set down her pencil.
Across the room, Quill turned a page.
Outside, bamboo leaves whispered against one another.
Everything sounded wonderfully peaceful.
Jillian found this mildly irritating.
Ziggy discovered the paper ball on his way to the biscuit plate.
It rolled against his foot.
He stopped.
Looked down.
Then looked toward the desk.
Jillian was staring at a fresh sheet of paper.
She had made one mark on it.
A very small mark.
It seemed to be waiting for an explanation.
Ziggy picked up the paper ball.
“Do you need this?”
“No.”
He turned it in his paws.
“There’s something on it.”
“Something that didn’t work.”
“Oh.”
He carried it to the desk anyway.
Uncrumpling paper took longer than Ziggy expected.
One corner sprang back.
Another folded underneath.
For a moment, the cottage had a mountain through its middle.
Eventually, he pressed it flat with both paws.
Jillian glanced over.
“You don’t have to rescue it.”
Ziggy studied the picture.
“Who lives here?”
“Nobody.”
“Are they out?”
“No, I mean I haven’t thought about it.”
Ziggy considered the little house.
There was a round window tucked beneath the crooked roof.
A path wound through the garden.
The bent tree reached over it.
“Can I look a bit longer?”
Jillian pushed aside her unused sheet.
“If you like.”
Ziggy followed the path with one careful paw.
“It goes around the tree.”
“It was supposed to go straight.”
“But then you’d bump into it.”
Jillian looked.
The path did, in fact, bend quite sensibly around the trunk.
“And that window,” he said. “You could see who was coming.”
“One window is higher than the other.”
“Perhaps they’re different heights.”
“Who are?”
“The people inside.”
Jillian pressed her lips together.
Ziggy looked up.
“Is that wrong?”
“No,” she said. “That’s rather nice.”
Bam appeared beside the chair.
“Is there a kitchen?”
“Probably,” said Jillian.
“Good start.”
He examined the cottage.
“You’ve forgotten something.”
“The chimney’s crooked. I know.”
“No. A bench.”
“A bench?”
“For taking your boots off.”
Quill looked over his book.
“You don’t wear boots.”
“Visitors might.”
Jillian picked up her pencil.
Beside the door, she drew a little bench.
Bam nodded.
“Much better.”
Then he continued toward the biscuits, his inspection complete.
Jillian looked at the tree again.
Its trunk bent over the path, and its branches reached almost to the roof.
Earlier, she had tried very hard to make it straight.
Now she added leaves.
A few near the window.
Some above the bench.
Enough to make a patch of shade where someone could sit in summer.
Ziggy watched her hand move.
“You’re keeping it?”
“I’m seeing what happens.”
He settled beside the paper.
This seemed a good thing to wait for.
The garden needed a gate.
Jillian began with two upright posts.
One came out slightly taller than the other.
Her pencil stopped.
Ziggy noticed.
“Does it still open?”
She looked at him.
Then she drew the hinges.
“Yes.”
“Oh, good.”
She left the posts alone.
By the time Remy brought fresh tea, the cottage had flowers along its fence and a little lamp in the window.
They set Jillian’s cup beside her.
“Somewhere new?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Remy looked at the drawing.
“I’d stop there.”
Jillian glanced down.
The roof was still crooked.
The windows still didn’t match.
Across the paper ran the faint creases left by her hands when she had crumpled it.
But there was a bench beside the door.
Shade across the path.
A gate that opened.
She reached for the fresh sheet, slid it beneath the drawing, and used it to support the worn corner while she finished the fence.
Later, she pinned the cottage above her desk.
Quill helped her find a space.
Bam checked that the bench remained clearly visible.
Ziggy sat below it, looking pleased.
“What shall we call it?” he asked.
Jillian thought for a moment.
Then she took a small scrap of paper and wrote:
Somewhere to Arrive.
She tucked it beneath the drawing.
Outside, the last light faded from the bamboo.
Inside, Jillian opened her sketchbook.
On the next clean page, she began a different house.
The first line wobbled.
She let it.