Zhangdao's Artful Banishment

“Zhangdao, you’re on your third cup.”

I looked up to see my mother standing in the doorway of my room. I blinked a couple of times and tried to focus on her face. “Oh,” was all I could say.

“It’s time to go, dear. We have to drop off your sister at her friend’s house and then we need to get to our appointment with the artist.”

I sighed and set my cup down on my nightstand. I didn’t want to go anywhere today, but I knew that if I didn’t get out of bed, my family would be here any second and force me up anyway.

I stood up and walked past my mother into the living room where my father, who was already dressed, sat reading a book. My younger sister had already grabbed her backpack and was waiting by the door for me. Her eyes were red from all the crying she did last night when she learned that we were going to visit an artist today. She hated it when one of us was going somewhere without her.

Today we were meeting with an artist who would paint a portrait of my grandmother, who passed away two years ago. My mother had been talking about this portrait ever since Grandmother died and although it upset me because Grandmother had passed away so suddenly after suffering a stroke, I couldn’t help but feel excited because art was something I really loved and the idea of having a beautiful painting of my grandmother that I could look at every day sounded wonderful to me.

My father drove us to a large building in the middle of town that stood out from all the other buildings nearby because it looked like it belonged in a European city hundreds of years ago instead of modern Shanghai. It looked overgrown with vines and ivy that clung to its walls making it seem like it had always been there instead of being built just twenty years ago by some famous architect who wanted to create an old-fashioned aesthetic for his new building in Shanghai.

We arrived at the building just as another car pulled up behind us in the driveway and parked next to us. A young man got out and headed towards us as we climbed out of our car. He smiled at us when he reached our car and stuck out his hand which my father shook before introducing himself as Jiaying Longer, the son of our family's old friend Mr Longer who wanted this portrait painted for his dead relative's grave site. The young man introduced himself as Jiaying Longer's son Zhangdao who would be painting the portrait for us today and urged us inside as thunder cracked ominously overhead."