Chapter 10
I’m staring at the prints of my liquor store self-portrait, spread out on the dining room table under bright chandelier light.
I tell myself the smudge, the shadow, won’t be there; it can’t be there.
I checked behind me and saw nothing, no one, before taking the shot.
But here it is in every last version: a small, dark figure in the top right corner, by a cluster of trees. Somehow he found me. He followed me.
The side of my body throbs. I clutch my waist and look away, squeezing my eyes shut like a child.
It will be gone when I open my eyes. But it’s still there when I look at the prints again.
Of course it is. It’s as real and undeniable as everything else I see: the trees beside it, the rows of liquor bottles, the sidewalk, my own placid face.
I choose one out of the batch and try keeping my eyes glued to the center of the portrait, not the margins, taking comfort in my gem-filled form and my strong, steady gaze.
How could someone like this be afraid of a shadow?
I stare for as long as I can, smiling and feeling no pain, no pain at all.
But I can’t resist the pull of the top right corner forever.
There it is, the dark shape of a man—and the pain shoots back.
I gasp and put the print down, catching sight of my bare feet on the carpet.
My lovely blue carpet, running through the house like a calming sea.
If only Rosie were there, too, panting up at me.
I’d hold her and feel her hot little breath in my face.
She’d negate the shadow man somehow, my Rosie.
But she isn’t there—she’s been negated. Another throb of hurt.
I hunch over with it, my hands gripping the back of a chair.
When I can, I sweep the prints into a haphazard pile and carry them right to the kitchen trash can.
I will not tell Tom and risk his health; I will not show Paul and risk his interference, his prodding questions.
I stand by the trash can with the prints in hand, feeling the waste of what I’m about to do like a dull ache at the back of my head.
Or maybe that dull ache was already there—maybe it came from straining my eyes, or from looking too long at a troubling thing.
The phone rings, loud and insistent.
I startle. The prints drop to the floor.
“Stanley residence,” I manage in a trembling voice.
“Judith! I can’t thank you enough! You’re so good.
You should open a shop,” Samantha says in a rush.
I exhale and lean against the kitchen wall, grateful to hear my neighbor’s voice, even as I bristle at her suggestion of my opening “a shop.” I can’t stand the idea, though I know she thinks she’s praising me by saying it.
Spending my days posing children on stools; fixing stray hairs around strained faces; gently folding hands together on laps in front of fake scenes of autumn leaves, cherry blossoms, or blue sky—all of it stinks of boredom and death.
But to most people, owning a studio represents the pinnacle of a photographer’s achievement.
“I’m so glad you like them. It was a wonderful party.
You and Hal seemed very happy,” I add, though I’m remembering Hal’s grimace, and imagine for a moment how badly Samantha would react if she ever saw the photograph—which she never will.
And how would she react to what I saw in her master bedroom?
On her pristine blue duvet? I start to lose myself in what I witnessed, when Samantha’s voice brings me back to the surface of our shared pleasantries.
“We were happy, and we are! We had a fabulous time, and we’re so glad you and Tom could come. He seems to be doing well.” A note of sudden solemnity in her voice.
“Yes, Tom is perfectly fine,” I say, because Tom is fine.
He had a ministroke, the doctors said—but no one needs to know those specifics or the lingering threat of recurrence, and no one will.
Not Samantha, not anyone else in town. Our neighbors have pried for days now, but Tom and I won’t crack.
It’s a private matter. A Stanley matter.
And it won’t happen again. Not if I watch over him, keep him calm.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she says, but I can hear the letdown in her voice.
“When the ambulance came and took him, I was terrified for you!” It’s close to what Patty said at the party, but Samantha’s comment pierces me deeply today.
I go rigid, remembering the two vigorous young men who packed Tom onto a stretcher and carried him out the front door.
There were flashing red lights that drew the neighbors to their porches, hands clasped to their chests or over their mouths.
They were scared for us, yes, but beyond that, they were greatly relieved to not be us.
To be spared the imminent threat of death.
“Thank you, Samantha, we’re fine now,” I say a little crisply. “I’ve got to get something in the oven before Tom gets home. I’m so glad you liked the pictures.”
“Oh—I’ve left something on your front porch. A token of thanks. And I’ll be your best customer when you open that studio!”
Long after we’ve hung up, I lean against the wall with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone.
I can’t stand everyone knowing our business.
Digging for details. Gossiping behind our backs.
I remember lying in my dark bedroom when I was sixteen, just after the attack, hearing a neighbor in our kitchen say to Grandmother, The poor girl, to be ruined that way!
I lay there feeling ruin all over my body, when I had only felt pain and confusion before. Now shame was added in: I was ruined.
I couldn’t hear my grandmother’s response—it was low and rumbling, probably sharing key details: my torn dress, the gross smell of burnt flesh.
She’d used my incident as coinage in town, gathering sympathy and praise for what she’d endured, how well she’d cared for me—despite the humiliation of it all and my ruined state.
I stop wallowing and kneel to gather up the scattered prints. There’s still an ache, but when I pick up the first liquor store self-portrait—the best version, I think—sadness overrides my fear: I wanted so badly to share this one with Paul.
And then I realize: I can reprint the photo and crop the man out.
It won’t mar the composition, and it won’t take long.
It won’t eradicate the man, either—not in real life.
But at least it will mean I can show Paul my pictures.
I can satisfy my stupid little desire—and the thought of desire makes me blush, makes me tremble.
I toss the tainted pictures in the trash, making sure they’re face down.
—
Once the cropped prints are dry, I scan each one for the figure, but it’s gone—of course.
I’m triumphant, but drained, too, as if I’ve excised something crucial from myself: the tip of an inner organ, or part of a limb.
I can’t explain it any more than I can explain the man’s presence in my pictures, but I feel puzzled and oddly bereft.
Tom will be home soon. I tuck the pictures away and remember, suddenly, the gift Samantha said she’d left.
It’s there on the front porch: a blue bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin with a silver bow around its neck.
What a strange coincidence, given my liquor store self-portrait; I’m certain Bombay Sapphire was one of the bottles on the shelf.
I think of Samantha being “the man,” hanging back as I take my pictures, dressed in all black.
The thought of her—cheerful and feminine and always impeccably dressed—skulking around after me through a dingy small town makes me laugh, standing there on my doorstep.
I peer into the aqua blue side of the bottle and see my own distorted, smiling face.