20. Twenty
Twenty
Ishould know by now that anytime I leave the house something disastrous is going to happen. I’m more stupid than I give myself credit for, because the scene in front of me stops me cold.
I drop the bags of groceries and my purse at the front door, unable to move.
My camera bag has been dumped on the kitchen table, gear scattered across it. Thor is sprawled beneath it . . . Chewing ?
Chewing.
I scramble across the room, letting out an audible, “No!” as I reach him.
On my hands and knees, I pry a roll of film out of his mouth. Gnawed beyond recognition, I can’t tell if it was used or unused.
“Jesus, Thor! What the . . . ?”
Then I hear it, the rest of the scene. The boys, laughing and banging things around.
I dart to a stand. They’re standing on chairs. At the stove. With a pot of boiling water. And my coffee canister of shot film.
Dumping.
“NO!” I shout, sprinting to them. I turn off the burner, repeating “No!” in a half-desperate cry, half wail of disbelief.
Because—No! My whole life plan of escaping this disaster is on these rolls of film.
No! Any hope of me being good at something is on these rolls of film.
No! Any chance of these kids seeing me as anything but nothing is on those rolls of film.
No! No! No!
“We’re making soup!” Ty declares with a grin, stirring a spoon in the pot. With. My. Film.
I nod, slack-jawed, throat pinched. This is not good.
3-2-1.
3-2-1.
I want to scream like a banshee, but I don’t. Mostly because I cannot breathe, much less trust myself not to spit the list of swear words that’s dancing on the tip of my tongue.
“Where is your sister?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“In the shower,” Hank says, tongue pinched between his lips as he focuses on squeezing a juice box into the “soup.”
At this, my sanity shatters.
“No!” I shout, yanking the juice from his hands, tossing it in the trash. “What are you two doing? This is my stuff. My things. Mine!” I snatch the pot off the stove and take it to the sink, dropping it with a clatter. “You don’t just-just-just—boil people’s things! Do you have any idea how hard I worked on all this?” I look around the counter, my film scattered about as my blood pressure soars to new heights. “How would you feel if I started boiling all your toys? Huh? Huh?”
I glare at them, feeling manic, and both their eyes swell with tears. My kids look at me the way they look at Ms. Mitchell, and it crushes me.
“I’m sorry, Mama!” Hank says, lip trembling as the spoon drops from his hand to the floor. “We were just playing. It was Ty’s idea.”
Ty starts to cry. “No, it wasn’t!”
As they wail, I wilt. Kneeling, I pull them to me. They sob and apologize through short breaths; I shhhh softly, repeat it’s okay , as I rub their backs. It’s as much for them as it is for me. They acted like four-year-olds, and so did I.
Finally, less their hiccupish breaths, they’re calm, laying on my lap.
“Okay,” I start, stroking their hair. “One, I love you more than I love that film.”
Their cheeks move against my palms as they nod.
“Two.” I pause, making sure I choose my words both wisely and free of expletives. “Never cook my things again.”
Another silent nod, and my fingers slip through their penny-red hair.
“And three . . .” My voice trails off as a million thoughts dance around me where I sit on the scratched wood floors that have dents, boards swollen from water damage, and claw marks.
I wonder if Camp and his sister ever sat with his mom on the floor like this when he was a kid.
How many more times I’ll do it with the boys.
When the last time it happened with Lyra was.
The noise of the podcasts blur together in a cacophony of advice. Like one continuous string tied in a loop.
Your kids will never see who you are if you don’t make them. Let yourself be someone different—the opposite of who you are. Reinvent yourself. Focus on the big picture. Don’t let them get away with it.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“What’s three?” Hank’s head pops up, little face looking at me. His freckles could be a connect-the-dot puzzle making the lines of him.
“Three,” I start, scrunching my nose, looking around the room. “Is—”
“Mom?!” Lyra’s voice says from the doorway. She pauses drying her hair with a towel as her eyes widen at the disastrous kitchen. “What happened here?”
“You took a shower,” I deadpan.
“Mom, I had no—” I wave her words away.
“Ly, it’s fine. It’s fine.” I stand up, helping the boys do the same. “But we have to get this cleaned up.” I move to the counter, inspect the film.
I haven’t had much extra time, but when I have, I’ve been shooting anything and everything.
I photographed the lake I’ve swam in every summer of my life and the streets I grew up on. The school. Local neighborhoods. Camp’s games, documenting the crowd and the players. Capturing Camp as he helps the pitchers warm up, slinging a ball so hard and fast it’s like he was never even injured and laughing as he swats one of the players with his glove.
Despite what Irma and Reed told me, I’ve been shooting landscapes, desperate to prove them wrong. Desperate to show them that this is what I’m made for. I’ve gone to state parks and scenic drive pull-offs. I’ve followed tourists and found the secret spots nobody knows about but the locals.
Rolls and rolls of film that I’ve been working my ass off on, waiting to be developed—waiting to reveal my destiny and reveal if I’m good at anything or nothing—now sit mostly ruined.
I collect the rolls, lay them out across the counter, and I’m flooded with relief. Sharpie-labeled rolls that I shot at local state parks—my last-ditch effort at proving to Irma I am a landscape photographer—are untouched. That means all the probably destroyed film was just the nonsense I did for fun.
A relieved exhale gushes out of me. “Okay, this is all okay.”
Then, an idea . . .
“You know”—I hold up a roll of film toward Lyra and the boys—“I took a photography class in college where we shot experimental film.”
As if planned, their heads all tilt in confused unison.
I laugh.
“We took rolls of film and, well, destroyed them, for lack of a better word.” I think of that class, the quirky teacher, and all the ruined film. We used lighters, stamps, bleach. Anything that didn’t make sense, we took it to film. Sometimes making something amazing, sometimes wrecking entire rolls. Sure, these are rolls I shot because I loved them, but nobody else will. Whether we destroy them or create something beautiful, it doesn’t matter at this point. “We even made film soup.”
When the boys’ eyes widen as big as the grins that follow, we get to work . . . with Lyra. We boil water, drop canisters into mason jars, and start mixing concoctions. Dish soap. Vinegar. Lemon juice. Food coloring. SpaghettiOs per Hank’s request, and lighter fluid per Ty’s. Lyra dumps soda over one. I use rosé . . . before pouring myself a generous glass.
In the midst of the mess, we turn on music, dancing around the kitchen as we mix ingredients, and I order pizza.
Lyra and I lean on the counter, watching the boys as they pour a little bit of everything into the last jar.
“What are you doing all this for?” she asks, studying me. “The photography? You haven’t shot, well, as long as I can remember. And now, it’s like, you can’t stop.”
I look at her—her dad’s replica and biggest fan—and debate what to say. How to answer. How to soften the blow that’s coming after forty-seven days. How to lie.
“I’m trying to work.” Her eyebrows shoot to the ceiling, and I chuckle softly. “I want to work, I mean. The boys will be in school full-time next year, and you’ll be gone . . . I can’t just sit here all day and watch Thor eat the furniture.”
She laughs, studying the boys then me as I take a sip of my wine.
“I don’t know what I thought I’d do with a degree in visual arts—don’t tell Grandpa I said that—but I’m . . . trying to figure it out.”
“What kind of photos do you like to take?”
Her question strikes me. Like . It’s such a simple word—four letters strung together and used repeatedly every day—but its context makes it feel radical. What kind of pictures do I like to take?
“Hmm,” I say, slight hum to my voice, just enough rosé in my blood to let me speak without filter. “I like stupid stuff—nothing. Photos that tell a story without actually showing the big picture—details. But those aren’t good for anything. Not really. In college I started taking landscape photos—I like those too. I think.” I chew the inside of my lips before I take another sip of wine. “Have you thought of what you want to go to school for? I know your heart is set on App State like Dad, but have you thought of majors or anything?”
She sighs, dropping her head back. Purple hair hanging down her back. “Doesn’t it seem weird that teenagers are allowed to make that big of a decision? We can’t even vote!”
I chuckle. “Well, if it makes you feel any better. I don’t think adults know how to make that kind of decision either. I’m forty and still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
She looks at me like I’m silly, popping one shoulder as she says, “You already know, Mom.”
She’s so sure in her comment. Like it’s obvious. Like she knows something I absolutely do not. Before I can ask what she means, she moves toward the boys, who are still maniacally souping. “Put one of Dad’s beers in that one.”
At the fridge, she pops a cap off a brown bottle—way more expert-like than I’m happy with—at the same time the delivery guy rings the doorbell. In the middle of a messy kitchen, with what is likely most of the film I’ve shot in the last weeks destroyed in jars, Today’s Best happens in grocery store–bought clothes while eating greasy pizza right out of the box.
When Camp comes home, he doesn’t bother to hide his surprise as he looks at the chaos of the house.
He slips his cleats off at the door, strolls over to where we’re sitting on the floor, and drops next to me. Hand on my back, he leans toward me, just an inch—expression faltering when he realizes what he’s doing—stilling before he pulls back. I recognize the familiarity of it; Camp was going to kiss me the way a husband kisses a wife at the end of a long day. He smiles, it's forced.
“I miss a party?” he asks, grabbing a slice and not looking directly at me.
Lyra wipes her mouth. “Mom taught us about photography,” she says around her next bite. “It’s pretty cool.”