For the Man at the Paint Counter

I had been putting off the trip for weeks—too much to do, bone tired—but I couldn’t postpone Halloween, so there I was, at the Lowe’s paint counter, asking for help with my eight-year-old’s costume. The man in the red vest smiled and stepped out to guide us to the aisle of spray paint cans lined up in their pleasing, perfect order, asking my daughter about the details of her costume. Shy with strangers, she sealed her lips and glued her eyes to the floor, and before I could try to describe her wildly creative mind—the reason we needed to paint a laundry basket green—he held up a hand. She doesn’t have to explain. With a conspiratorial wink, his enormous blond mustache turned up, he whispered, I’m an artist too. He added, We artists need the right materials. My daughter kept her eyes fixed on the floor, but I knew she felt seen. Her vision, taken seriously by this impish man. 

Once she selected her paint, he led us toward another aisle, suggesting, liquid sandpaper might give the plastic a little more texture. Maybe I could have known that by googling, but maybe not; how many YouTube tutorials can there be on painting old plastic laundry baskets? He handed her the small, white bottle, warned us not to ball up used rags because they could combust in the trash. At this—the possibility of danger, especially spontaneous fires—my kid’s excitement betrayed her cool. Her eyes lit up. Now, he had her full attention.  

This man had no way of knowing that I was recovering from surgery. That the results from the latest biopsies weren’t good. That I would be starting chemo soon, and at the same time, my son would be hospitalized for a major surgery, pandemic-delayed. He had no way of knowing that just hours earlier, my team at work had been called into a Zoom meeting with HR lawyers to be laid off from the work we had built and loved.  

May I be well enough one day, I thought, to pay this forward. May I remember the way he oozed kind, unhurried, unearned attention. The way it fed my kid. The way I saw it soften her. Soften us.  

As my kid hop-hurried toward the register, long ponytail swishing across her back, he asked if I’d bring him a picture of the costume later, if she allowed it. I nodded silently, words of gratitude stuck in my throat. For a moment, all that mattered to me was art and love and Halloween.  

Krista Lee Hanson (she/her) lives in Seattle, Washington, home of the Coast Salish people, with her partner and two children. Krista’s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, The Normal School, Tahoma Literary Review, Writers Resist, and Short Reads; she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Krista also teaches yoga, bakes bread, swims in the lake, and relishes her return to good health. She is still following her daughter’s creativity, this year helping her elevate Halloween to performance art with an “Irrational Pi(e)” costume. More at kristaleehanson.com.  

This essay is a Short Reads original.