Chapter 13
I’ve made Tom’s favorite for dinner: chicken piccata over pasta with a fresh spinach salad on the side.
Tom tells me it’s delicious, but his compliments can’t disperse the fog that’s descended since I came home today.
I take small bites of the meal I’ve prepared and think: This is the best thing I made today—to be consumed and processed and eliminated quickly. A literal waste.
When I look up, Tom is watching me closely.
“Where’d you go today?” he asks, trying to sound casual and unconcerned. He takes a long swallow of milk and waits for a satisfying report from his wife. I wipe my mouth, clear my throat, and deliver it.
“Nowhere—just downtown. Nothing much came of it,” I say lightly, holding back a dark slew of words: I tried to find the man who’s been following me but couldn’t even though I know he was somewhere nearby.
He’s the man who called yesterday and the man in my pictures who might have branded me years ago.
Those scars on my thighs are not from an accident.
You’ve known that, though, haven’t you? You just haven’t wanted to know and I’ve never wanted to upset you.
“I don’t believe that,” he says, and for a tense moment I think I’ve said it all aloud—or that Tom has read my mind somehow.
“I’m sure you got some good shots, hon. Can I see them?
” he asks, instantly calming my fears. He didn’t read my mind, of course, and his request is a simple one.
He rarely asks to see my pictures—but when he does, I try to filter out the “weird” ones.
No need for that today, though, so I get up from the table and bring him the contact sheets; the prints are still hanging to dry.
I’m not even sure why I bothered to process them, but I’d taken a full roll, had an empty afternoon, and somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought, What if there’s a good one?
“These are wonderful, Judith. You’re too hard on yourself. I can see these in a magazine. They’re just as good as the ones in Life.”
I thank him, but Tom’s approval only confirms what I know: there aren’t any good ones.
Not any truly good ones. As I clear the plates, I imagine showing this batch to Paul.
He would take them, expectant and smiling through his well-trimmed beard, saying, Judith, what gems do you have for me today?
And I would smile tremulously back, knowing I was giving him not gems but duds.
I would watch his smile falter as he searched through the pack for just one that stood out, one that proved he hadn’t been wrong about this unlikely talent, this quiet housewife.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes when he was done.
He would take the bunch and tap the edges against the desk, as I’ve seen him do with other students’ work, then hold them out as if they might taint him.
Very nice, he’d say, as he’s done with the others. Very nice pictures.
I look up in the darkened kitchen window over the sink as I fill one tub with hot, soapy water. I look startled in the reflection. Startled and sad. I could grab my Nikon now and capture it, this image of a pathetic, pained woman, but wouldn’t he be standing just behind me?
The man, I mean. Not Tom.