I sat on the sofa and leaned back against the cushions. “This morning, I went to the grocery store. Everything I saw reminded me of Jasper.” I crossed my legs and adjusted a pillow behind my back.
“When’s he coming back to live with you?” She looked around the apartment. I had carefully arranged Jasper’s belongings. Not a lot of them—a teddy bear and several children’s books had yet to be unpacked. The objects didn’t look staged. They looked natural. I had a drawer full of his clothing and a futon for his bed.
“Do you know?” she asked.
I could see Jasper in Venice by the boardwalk. I could see him playing baseball with his father. He had a head of dark curls, roses in his cheeks, and glowing olive skin. I was tempted to tell her that it was a matter of weeks.
The reason he was still in California … his father and I had decided that he needed a male role model, a strong man in his life. I felt the loss of Jasper.
“His father has enrolled him in a school there.”
Natalie eyed me. “You said he was coming back soon.” I heard derision in her voice.
“It’s a special school and we’ve decided it will be best for him.”
“What’s wrong with you?” She scowled at me.
“I’m looking out for him.”
“Does your kid even exist?”
My throat tightened. “Yes. Of course.”
“Why aren’t you more upset?” Natalie said. “You should be really upset.”
In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, there’s an imaginary child who dies. It was one of the few plays I’d seen, and I only saw it because years ago I’d dated a second-rate actor who’d performed in an inferior production of it.
“Maybe you feel neglected and you assume that Jasper feels neglected too. But I assure you he doesn’t.” An image of Jasper locked in a closet played over in my mind. An image of Jasper’s nose bleeding and his wrist broken. My little boy. It was my job to protect him. I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Jasper.
“You’ve abandoned him,” she said. Natalie’s opinion of me was slipping. I would have to work hard to regain her trust.
I adjusted the pillow behind my back again. “I’m doing what’s best for him.”
She returned the picture to the end table and stepped away from it, like it was poison. “You’re a liar.”
“My ex-husband remarried. Jasper has a stepmother and a father in California.” I stood and reached out to take her hand, but she pulled away. “I’m putting his interests first.” Tears filled my eyes. I’d always been skilled at crying on cue, when the situation called for it.
“But you’re his mom!”
“I send him a letter every day. I FaceTime with him once a week.”
“You told me you FaceTime every day.”
“It’s as often as possible.”
In my heart, I knew I was telling Natalie the emotional truth of the situation. I wasn’t certain who was responsible for Jasper’s injuries. Who was responsible for his scars. Was it me? Was it his stepmother? I forced myself to conjure the image of his stepmother. I used one of my clients, a well-dressed dermatologist, because it was the first one that came to me.
Natalie slumped onto my living room sofa in a despondent fashion. I noticed the chartreuse nail polish on her fingernails, a purposefully ugly color. She picked up my Canon DSLR that was resting on the coffee table and studied it in a distracted manner. Several minutes passed. I remained silent.
Finally she spoke. “It sucks to be young.” She removed the lens cap of the camera in her hand. “What are all the buttons and dials?”
She looked through the viewfinder.
“Photography is about light,” I said. “Different ways to control the amount of light you want to allow through. Most times you don’t have enough light. Occasionally you have too much light.”
“How do you give a photo more light?”
“Three camera settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.” I pointed to the adjustment for each, respectively.
“Can I take your picture?”
“Look through the viewfinder. Slowly squeeze the shutter until it fires.”
She pointed the camera toward me.
“You are beautiful,” she said.
It was true that I was beautiful. But I didn’t want to be more beautiful than Natalie. Rather, I didn’t want her to think I was more beautiful than she was.
She handed the camera back to me and I looked at the photo of myself.
“It’s a little dark,” I said. “Turn the shutter speed to sixty.”
She took the camera. “I went on your website,” she said. “I saw the pictures of Lucia in the maternity section.”
I experienced a mild burning sensation in my chest. “Did you like them?”
“I didn’t know you were in touch with her. I didn’t know you took pictures of her.”
“Mm-hmm.” Yes, I’d taken pictures of Lucia. Of course. I’d taken pictures of most people in my life. I was a photographer, after all.
“Weird that her boyfriend reappeared.” She snapped several photographs, then stopped taking photos and looked at me directly. “Don’t you think it’s weird?”
“You never know what people will do.”
Natalie shook her head. She studied my camera and adjusted several of the dials. We played some of the photos back. She had no interest in glamour. She went out of her way to find the moments when I’d divorced myself from my appearance.
“Natalie. I’m amazed by who you are. And astounded by your generosity and your talent.”
I opened the door to the patio. It was pleasantly cool outside, a breezy spring afternoon. She followed me out.
“Photography is always better outside,” I said. “The sun does the work. Energy is added, not subtracted.” Natalie asked me to sit on the chair opposite her and she continued to photograph me. When she played the photos back, I looked over her shoulder to see the images.
“Take pictures of Eliza,”
