The memory book is complete, but neither of the survivors are satisfied. Peeta paints a memorial tribute to the lost. A series of paintings that capture the beauty of life, rather than the emptiness of death. He considers starting with his family. Hesitates. And in the end, he paints his father and brothers laughing at their kitchen table, but leaves his mother out.
Prim is next, Burdock's arms wrapped protectively around her, pointing at the forest that lies beyond the canvas. Katniss stares over his shoulder during this portion, obsessively guiding him through each and every detail. The shade of Prim's eyes. The rosiness of her cheeks. The way her father's hands rest softly on her shoulders. The patch of katniss at their feet, Peeta's own addition, because he knows she'd do anything to be with them in that picture.
Next are the tributes of the 74th Hunger Games. Peeta didn't know them as well as he could have, so he turns to Katniss for guidance. Start with Rue, she says. And Thresh. A vast field of flowers from all across the districts. Their families, from memory, laughing and talking in the background. Deep brown, orange, amber shades spill across the canvas, from the shade of their skin to the sun setting in the sky, casting a soft orange glow across their faces.
Katniss kisses him, then. Peeta gazes up at her, asks, why? And she just looks at him with sad eyes and says, It's as if I can can still hear her voice. He understands.
Katniss doesn't remember most of the others. Peeta does, so he paints them wordlessly, a sea of dark jackets and tawny brown pants. He can't imagine them any other way, and the thought of their only memorial depicting them in the clothes they died in sends him spiraling into a panic attack, eyes blown wide with terror and anxiety. He nearly punches a hole in the canvas before Katniss talks him down, coaxes him into a nap on the nearby couch.
She sits in front of the canvas in silence, staring at the miniature Foxface snoozing peacefully in a tree. The other paintings are drying on a rack, looking stunning as his paintings tend to do. Glancing back at Peeta, whose fitful sleep is plagued with terrifying dreams, she turns away from the beautiful artwork and returns to his side.
