5.21.16 She was more

Since I was 22, I've had a beautifully wrought and heavy cedar chest ,left behind by a roommate up in Brattleboro , a reticent person, a retiring quiet friend. 
She left behind also an enormous watercolor, that we've relished living with all these years since.
Back then, she was moving out, and shrugged as she left it , newly up on her wall , the watercolor from her too-important-to-come-visit-or-call esteemed father. 
He was a distant , prosperous artist, who chose a piece to gift her, as lovely as pie.
Of sheets on a line , off on the windy day, with a great gouged signature somewhat painted over in the left corner , it's proper replica repeated over in the right.
She'd had it leaning face to wall in her room all that time, and looked away when I saw it first , something not hard to understand.
But when leaving , she'd hung it up in the place from which she herself now would go.
And in that moment, as we both stood and briefly glanced at the thing, a dog she could manage if we stood together, I gave her with my eyes then and our goodbye embrace that she was more than he'd ever be.