The first blush of daylight is cradled in a summer sun shower. Taking cover under the awning of a Parisian meat shop, I’m aware that the nearby church bells will soon clamor and clang—a palpable cacophony felt in my bones. Something aligns. Commotion. Peering in, I watch the butcher chop up a lamb carcass on a waist-high wooden block. Framed in my viewfinder, he smiles and waves me in, then tidily places pieces of shank and loin in the refrigerated display window. Inside, it’s cold. The bloodied meat stench, raw and metallic, startles before it settles. The butcher moves to the next dead thing, swiftly skinning a lifeless cottontail rabbit with his bare hands. A notch is cut into the hide, fur peeled back, each leg undressed like a sock. Soon the hare will hang, largely intact, on a swiveling stainless steel hook. Each movement, each gesture, is a study. For my upcoming show, I’m shooting appetite.
While selecting my settings, your teaching voice triggers my choices. How much light do you want to let in? What’s your distance to the subject? Locate the contrast; photography math is comprised of complex equations. I loved learning. F-stop. Shutter speed. Composition. Exposure. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain was a mnemonic phrase you taught me to identify the chromatic colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Mentoring me further: Raindrops are geometry and photography is math and both depend on a light source, understand?
When I think of you I don’t remember how to breathe. Dazzling. That’s what you’d say as I took dresses from their ribboned boxes, then slipped them on over my head. Nobody else saw me through your eyes. The tags stayed on the clothes and most were returned. Except one. Simple. Clingy. Polynesian blue. I asked if I could wear it to school. You said: Your parents and teachers would wonder where you got an expensive dress. Leave it here so we can keep seeing each other. You want that, don’t you?
At the beginning of every summer, I rode my bike to the house you rented in town. Done with your teaching, it wasn’t a day past June 21st when you were already meticulously setting up your studio and running out with your camera. Straddle the seat wider for a still shot. Now ride in a circle as I keep shooting. My carousel-colored handlebar streamers whipped feverishly in the wind. Vixen! you thundered.
Church bells ring out.
The butcher is consumed with the art of carving up a suckling pig with a bone saw. A good butcher makes use of the whole animal—all its innards and bones—nothing going to waste. The knife scars on the executioner’s block catch my eye. They outline numerous nude and noosed nose-to-tail corpses. Clicking away, my eyes burn as a heavyhearted thought takes over. Seven years old. When you first took my photo, I was the same age as our boy, the son who is loved and parented. He doesn’t know what I did at his age. Pure. A bit sheltered. Held too tightly. I watch him come and go, always in my view.
Tintinnabulation punctures time as I walk unfaltering toward the secluded café to meet you.
The first time I met you, your hand pantomimed that I should brush my hair off my forehead, sweep the heavy strands to the side. Nearly eight years old and playful, I responded Nice camera you got mister.
I take pictures.
Cool, sounds great.
Freezing into a pose was me following instructions. It wasn’t, as you would say years later, evidence of eagerness. Circled with an orange grease pencil on a contact sheet was my hand on my hip, but that wasn’t proof. It ignored that the contours of my body belonged to a child.
Willingly. That’s what you said. I wanted to be noticed. That was power I didn’t understand.
Your lens let me see myself more clearly. Differently.
May I? It wasn’t a question. Your cigar-shaped finger flipped the hair from my eyes. You have to open the curtains to see the sun. Why hide an interesting face? My body stiffened. Whenever you are in the chair across from me, I need to be in control. Back then, Shelter Island wasn’t the see-and-be-seen crowd and you weren’t a year-round resident. I stood and curtsied, then sat back down on the sunbaked concrete bench, licking away at my dripping ice cream cone. That reflex—to please when confused—is its own self-slaughter.
Your laugh reminded me of a boy in my homeroom who told jokes everyone knew by heart. Why was the broom late for school? He over swept. The girth of your giggle felt paternal, and I basked in your attention. Maybe you knew my father, or were his friend. I liked your interest in me.
Something was phrased like did I know how to take photos? It was a test. Would I be pulled into, or away from, a conversation with you? That was the moment.
Point and click.
In that moment, you knew I was more than just malleable. With its long lens draped over your shoulder, the professional camera grazed my arm as you wiped melting strawberry ice cream from my chin. The touch was slight, quick. Unbothered, I watched you place your camera bag on the ground as you switched to a knocked-around Polaroid.
Think taking photographs is that easy?
My foot horse-hoofed a tiny patch of worn ground and kicked up a low cloud of dust.
Can I take your picture?
Okay.
When I stood up, rainbow sprinkles fell from my cone. Pink, blue, lime, yellow, white, and purple decorated the grass. I had glanced away for only a second, but time enough for you to snap a photo.
That was just terrific. Little girl, you’re a natural.
I hid my confusion in a sealed smile and answered with a polite Thank you. The ghostly print was in your hand. Maybe you waved it dry, or I wanted to remember you did. The image shows that I never looked up when the picture was taken. You handed it to me. Keep it. When you look at it, see the shape of a chance. I’ll take another tomorrow.
The next day I rode my bike to Dairy Delights where you were already licking a dripping vanilla ice cream cone. You offered it to me. I didn’t want it. Oh that’s right, you like strawberry with rainbow sprinkles. You remembered what I liked and ordered me a cone. It felt rude and unthinkable not to accept.
Thank you.
No, thank you for coming. I bet your parents liked the Polaroid I took of you.
Like a fool, I curtsied—anything not to respond to what you already knew. I hadn’t shown anyone the picture. With the real camera, take my photo.
Have you posed before? Your tone, not trying to catch me in a lie, understood the shape of my life. Silence equaled shame.
You swiped the bangs from my eyes and reached for your camera. Don’t move sounded like a Simon Says challenge. Ice cream and sprinkles dribbled onto my hand. Stay. I remained uncomfortably still, the way I did when Dad would sometimes walk in on me taking a bath saying he needed to use the toilet. If I wanted to leave I could, only there was this curiosity about being viewed through a lens that made me want to stay.
Good job. Let’s get you cleaned up. My place is just over there. Everything told me not to go. Not afraid, are you?
You did that often—said exactly what I was thinking.
If you go home like that your parents will be upset with me. And I doubt they’ll let you keep modeling. At eleven months old, Brooke Shields starred in an Ivory Soap commercial. You knew that, didn’t you?
I didn’t. But I nodded. Lying was easy.
Weeks later you reminded me that I initiated our first conversation. But what can a seven-year-old initiate?
You said I’d offered, Nice camera. Even now I hesitate to say what I think. It happened in reverse. You telling me you take pictures, me responding out of politeness and surprise. You knew that as you waited for my voice, measured the time between my silence and when I spoke. My weight would have been shifting from leg to leg. A thing I do to stay present when I’m scared. So small a movement that it’s not noticeable. Not a sway, not a seesaw—just enough not to run.
You recall me differently than I do. You still do. We remain in the continual present of the past.
Smile. That’s it. Turn your head. Lower your chin. Love it. I liked being told what to do. Your commands were parental. The camera clicks applause. Your guidance filled a void.
Look into the lens. That’s it. I like that. Good. Good. So good!
What would it feel like to hear very good?
Then, as quickly as you came into my life, you left. The summer season ended, and I entered second grade knowing that each refracted ray of a rainbow bends at a different angle. Red the least, violet the most. I could also describe the moonlit Paris streets you loved to photograph. If teachers asked how I learned so much over the break, I repeated your phrase of endearment. I’m a curious sort. The Polaroid—my head looking down at the manicured grass, blunt bangs, blurred Dairy Delights sign in the background—was my only souvenir, hidden under my mattress.
Now, I choose a table by the bay window, where a patch of sunlight is growing. Tucking loose strands of hair behind my ears, I approach a coltish waitress wiping the bar and pushing stools into place. Her eyes flash a be-right-with-you signal. She fishes an order pad from her denim apron and makes a quick mark with a pew pencil. Is it a song lyric? My trespassing gaze pilfers eau de pluie. Smidgens of high school French class pierce my memory. Rainwater?
The server’s athletic, bare legs are framed by a short skirt and Converse high tops. My gaze traces her needlelike frame. It feels wrong. Countless times my own body was traced without my consent. How simple it is to get next to someone and cross a boundary. I’m about to ask for a cappuccino when the click and whir of your camera mousetraps her attention. She has no idea what you’re capable of. You double kiss me and honk to the waitress, “Coffee.” I add, “Deux, s’il vous plaît.”
“Your French is better than mine.”
The child with skinned knees and belted Wrangler jeans is absent from this room. As I lead us to the table, I’m almost happy you’re here. Can I see the camera? Not a single image will survive the exposure to light, not of her, nor all the things you captured in the hours before arriving here. I know you. How you rallied early and wandered about, searching for the perfect light. Pulling the film out and leaving it strewn feels cliché, yet gratifying.
We do not touch the coffee. Your white hair recedes in a horseshoe—time crudely visible.
“The gallery is close by.” You reach for my hand.
“I need to use the bathroom.” As I get up, then start to walk away, perhaps testing me, you leave money on the table for the waitress along with your business card. I snatch the card, tear it into confetti. “Really?” Your smirking grates on me.
On the weekends, my parents, youngsters themselves, handed me five- and ten-dollar bills. Don’t go far from town they’d shout before they assaulted each other with words, then fists. Down the street their shouting spun inside my ears. I didn’t care much about friends. I liked dogs even though I didn’t have one. Jenny, the only person I could tolerate, lived two doors away on our cul-de-sac mostly occupied by seasonal carpenters and firefighters. As non-affluent year-rounders of Shelter Island, the “un-Hamptons,” an island with 45 miles of coastline and two golf courses, we were told that our fathers did great jobs, putting up fences or rescuing kittens from trees.
Jenny never asked if the rumor about my parents scuffling in the cereal aisle at the grocery store was true. They had started an argument over Wheaties and Rice Chex. Dad wanted the breakfast of champions with Michael Jordan on the box going for a lay-up. His hand moving toward the shopping cart was my cue that things would escalate. I wandered away. Stacked items on a shelf don’t need much encouragement to come crashing down.
A store security guard found me busy in the frozen food section. Certain my parents would feel guilty enough to let me eat what I wanted for days, I pulled every fried-chicken Hungry-Man dinner from the case and clutched them to my chest.
When I told Jenny she said I would have loaded up on Eskimo Pies.
Did you ever take a bath with your dad? I asked.
When I was two or three.
I grabbed the doll that she was holding and the arm came off. Without saying anything, she put the arm back into the socket, moved it to make sure it was fixed, then left the room. Soon her mother came and told me she’d walk me home. When we arrived, she asked my mother if she could speak to her alone.
Go upstairs. Mom’s voice was ironed flat.
At the dinner table that night Mom told me to pass the salt and pepper then stood up and said Go to your room. I was hungry and hesitated. Did you hear me? She looked at my father. She says and does whatever she wants. Who knows why she said that to Jenny. Turning to me she shouted Are you happy now? I ran to my room.
*
In the dimly lit café restroom, I stare in the mirror, fingering my bangs to give them volume. A part of me still inhabits a child’s consciousness. My reflection, my hair, returns a look of being seven. You are not my husband. You know me with bangs. Until today, my husband has never seen me with them. I’d showered and cut my towel-dried hair before leaving the hotel bathroom this morning. Ryder’s eyes opened wide, like on that perfect Sedona day when we exchanged vows.
Seven years ago, Ryder carried his big dog into the vet’s office where I was a new receptionist. I asked her name.
Jigsaw. At the mention of her name, she peed on the floor.
No worries, I got it—it’s fine. She’s gonna be fine. His unsteady fourteen-year-old blue roan cocker spaniel was dying. The office was closing. Only a vet tech was available. But there was nothing anyone could do. I asked him to wait for me in the parking lot as I turned on the answering machine, fed the cat that lived atop the fax machine and pre-set up the coffee machine for the morning. When I came out Jigsaw barked and staggered toward me as Ryder dropped the leash.it
Let’s go. My words life-changing. We left the clinic and drove to a house near your summer rental. Inside, Jigsaw curled into me. As I petted her, I could feel the numerous bumps under her coat. Ryder made dinner. I used the bathroom and noticed the circular bamboo shower mat, not a worn towel like you used. When I came out, the table was set and Jigsaw was right there, heavily panting. Every time I shifted, the dog looked up to see if I was leaving. When I got ready to go, she started to shake. Ryder went to hold her and I did too. It was the first time I cried, a good long cry, hormonal, disorienting tears. The three of us locked together.
So pained by the dying dog, I couldn’t separate her from my pregnancy. To feel something growing inside me as Jigsaw labored to breathe felt unfair. Ryder wanted nothing more than for his dog to live. I didn’t know what I wanted.
Jigsaw needs a lot of care. Stay. I’ll sleep on the couch.
Instead, I took Ryder’s hand, led him into the bedroom and got undressed. I knew so many things we could do, but as I stood there looking at him, he lifted Jigsaw onto the bed, walked over to me, pulled me close to him and whispered I don’t want it to be like this. While I put on my clothes, Jigsaw barked and fussed.
Let’s put her between us.
The next day I called in sick to stay with Jigsaw. Ryder thanked me. He offered me the job of being her nurse. I didn’t need convincing. Two weeks later, I’d just come out of the shower and was about to grab a towel when I saw Ryder standing in the bathroom doorframe. I knew—Jigsaw was gone. As I approached him, naked, his hand outlined my breeding belly. To silence you and everything that came before, he kissed me.
After his client’s house was built, we moved to his home in Arizona.
Putting my head under the faucet to wet my hair and slick it back. Beyond the restroom door, coffee beans grind and the espresso machine hisses to life. For a moment, I enjoy erasing my bangs. Androgynous. Yet, that too, might interest you.
Gone. The balled-up exposed film was left behind. On the back of the customer receipt, you’d scribbled the gallery address.
*
You taught me how to manipulate light. But I educated myself to see through a lens without distortion. By the time Danny was born, I had another life entirely. In Sedona, I took up photography as a profession and became a passionate hiker. For hours, I’d walk on Little Horse, my favorite trail, carrying our son in a sling. To be able to catch the golden morning light on the red rocks, I’d leave before sunrise when the sky was still darkened. The blazing light drew me to Cathedral Rock, its crimson spires piercing the sapphire sky, radiating a sense of healing. People of Sedona are sometimes referred to as those that are “on the path.”
For years you had me sit in front of a faded orange backdrop. It was cold in your house but you told me to be patient. I couldn’t help feeling shy and grabbed the brim of my hat with both hands to cover my face. Perfect. Open your legs like you’re back on the bike. I kept my eyes closed.
Afterwards you’d go to the shed that the owner let you convert into a darkroom. I wasn’t allowed to go with you. The chemicals are too strong. It wasn’t until I turned thirteen, got my period and wouldn’t take off my jeans, that you let me enter the darkroom. Whatever rules had kept me outside changed that day. Did you sense that I was bleeding? Realize my hesitation? You saw me differently. That’s when I saw your years of curated work. At first the photos frightened me, then they felt thrilling. I mattered to you so much that you needed to replicate me over and over.
Capturing innocence is an art. You walked me to the photo where I first stood for you in only my underwear. Once you were so scared. Do you see the balance of the composition? You went on to tell me that my nine-year-old breasts stole the focus and how the straw hat spoke to the background. I didn’t understand and you said I’ll show you.
Your hand traced the outline of my chin and drew a straight soft line down to my throat. It slid further and sideways with you saying Collarbone to a non-artist, but to us a captivating clavicle. Your palms traveling across my bones like they were coated with velvet made me feel cared for. As you cupped both my breasts sheathed by my first bra, the smell of chemicals made me dizzy. The way your hands helped me take off my t-shirt seemed reassuring.
Do you touch yourself? Your hand went to your crotch. Was this a test? Simon Says? I wasn’t going to lose. No longer seven, nor confused, I didn’t run away though I could have. You knew how to get inside my head.
I looked around the room at all the positions I’d let myself be put into. Years of photographs were spread across darkened walls. In every photo, I’m smiling. Pushing your hands away, I mimicked how you touched me. I hadn’t expected to like how it felt.
We’re losing valuable light. Undress here so I can do test shots. Models can’t be modest. The light to shoot didn’t exist in a darkroom and I didn’t think you had film in the camera. Even though I knew you’d see the sanitary pad, I wanted to please you. No flash went off as I stood there bleeding and focusing on the photos clipped with wood clothespins to a string across the length of the room. I was a model, but still a little girl.
The next year I knocked on your door and, seeing the startled look on your face, I almost turned and ran away, but your wavering didn’t last long. Let’s go for a drive and celebrate our seventh anniversary. At Mashomack Nature Preserve we parked and began to hike. You strayed off the path and ignored the posted rules that I’d stopped to read. There were so many I can only recall a few: No pets. Everything carried in must be carried out. Removal of rare specimens results in diminishing the stability of nature and loss of enjoyment for future visitors.
I followed you deep into the forest listening to you tell me that, if I continued to see you, things would have to be different. You’re fourteen. It’s time to be more grown up.
In the middle of nowhere, you instructed me to stand next to a tree. I did as I was told, but it was hot and I was feeling dizzy. Unzip your jeans. You hadn’t taken your camera into the woods. As you came towards me, I closed my eyes and listened to your footsteps crunch over fallen twigs.
Your finger went inside me. Open your eyes. Look at me.
Your other hand slipped behind me to encourage a gentle rocking motion from my hips until I found my own rhythm and you whispered in my ear That’s it. This was a clandestine trail.
The next two years our summers were different. No longer a renter, you’d purchased the house, but you were still not a year-rounder. You gave me one of your old cameras and left me a key to the darkroom shed. I had no idea what to take pictures of, but there were tons of photography books to study all fall, winter and spring.
Will I know when I find the right subject?
You looked at me for a long time before answering. Finding the right subject is the hardest part.
When I turned seventeen, I packed a small bag and spent two nights with you. Preparing for their long overdue divorce, my parents assumed I was staying at Jenny’s. They never checked on me and I never offered to explain.
As you get older, I realize how sometimes a person doesn’t want to know the truth—including myself.
The first night I stayed, you bathed me and fed me from a baby bottle. Do you like when I touch you there? Before I could speak, you hummed and mumbled. No words. Just sounds. Make only sounds. I did—oh God did I make sounds.
I had no idea you had a camera set up. I was shameless as I asked you to make love to me. Other girls in school were letting boys do what we’d already done and some had gone all the way. I felt ready and closed my eyes, pretending that I was lost in the woods and you were coming to save me. Your hands searched for the tips of my nipples, but not in a soft and gentle manner. You became violent.
As I cried out for you to stop, you insisted this was what I wanted. You threw me against the wall facing the wood paneling and spread my legs. No longer struggling, I waited for you to be through. Afterwards you held me tight, reminding me that I had asked you to do this to me. Too scared to run away, I let you give me another bath and cradle me in your arms.
That night you made me watch the video, replaying the part where I asked you to make love to me. I started to cry and you came over to comfort me. You need a real drink to calm your nerves. You offered me a tumbler. I stared hard at the glass knowing that if I reached for it, you’d see that I was shaking. You mistook my locked gaze as a thirst for knowledge. I felt my mind sharpening as you talked about the optical properties of light through the crystal. Even though every part of my body felt dead, I wanted you to shut up. Refraction. They teach that in school. I pulled the glass to my lips using both hands. Whatever you poured I drank. Though my throat was burning, I refused to wince or look away from the wall.
Want another drink? I said yes only so you’d have to get up and move away from me.
I watched as you put a fresh roll of film in the camera and spun back around. The clicking shutter lulled me back into rhythm. You’re feeling good, aren’t you? I was.
You put the camera down and motioned me over to dance. Slow dancing together, you softly sang Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high – there’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby. I felt safe until you pushed me onto the floor.
Every opening of my body felt your hardness. Afterwards I curled into a ball and watched you pack up your things. Instead of a bath, you told me to take a shower. When I came out, you handed me a dress, the plainest one. Then you taught me how to make coffee using a French press. It was simple and you were patient. Taking your things to your car, you told me I could stay. Lock up when you leave. Put both keys under the doormat.
That was July. I left my bike in the shed and opened the blackened window for squirrels and racoons to enter. You would have to deal with the damages. Accidental or otherwise.
I became reckless and mouthy at home. Demanded a new ten-speed and an allowance because I wanted to hear myself ask—ask for anything. The way my parents looked at me—that was progress. They were searching for a child who no longer existed. They stopped fighting long enough to realize they had a problem. Mom, perhaps realizing that I was months from turning eighteen, asked to spend time with me. Dad bought me the bike, never asking about the old one. With my allowance, I bought a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. By August, a boy from school asked me to take a walk. I said yes. Yes to him. Yes because I could.
In October, I received an unsigned card. When you are ready, call me. But you left no number and I didn’t want to call.
When summer arrived once again on Shelter Island and you sought me out. I now had boyfriends, waist-length hair, and experiences that made you jealous. You asked me to dinner and I said no.
Do they make you feel better than I did?
Forget it. I wasn’t playing your game.
A week later, I saw your car again. This time, when I turned to walk away, you got out and followed me. I remember thinking it was almost funny. That I finally had the power to say no.
You grabbed my wrists and pulled me into your car, but I didn’t scream. We drove to your home, still set up like a tiresome rental with banged up baseboards, old sheets over used furniture, and the smell of mildew. You then blindfolded me and placed me on my knees. I knew what was going to happen.
When I came to, you were crying. You never said you loved me, but that time I believed you did.
*
Earlier this morning, before seeing you, I took Danny sightseeing along the Seine. He walked the water’s edge to collect lost coat buttons, centimes, and rounded stones. In sandaled feet, he was determined to find great treasures. I tore off pieces of my baguette for us to eat and asked him to sit with me. Between bites, Danny shared with me a magnificent tale about a princess and a pirate and a faraway land. I knew that place.
Danny was dressed in threadbare pajama bottoms that he insisted on wearing. Mom, these pants always bring me good luck. I didn’t want to fight with him. Seven is a magical age where a kid gets to be a kid. Okay, but you can’t wear them to bed tonight. He agreed. What would he wear then when the sky darkened?
Tonight, we’ll wrap ourselves in hotel robes before turning our attention to the soon to be lit Eiffel Tower. I will ease him into sleep, listening as he proudly enumerates the facts he has mastered about the tower, each one a tiny world of his own. 1,665 steps. Every seven years the surface is stripped by fifty men who use 60 tons of paint to recoat it. If you mail a card from the post office on the first floor, it will be delivered with a “Tour Eiffel Paris” stamp you can’t get anywhere else in the world. Soon enough his jet-lagged voice will ebb into gentle, steady breaths.
I think back to the times you tucked me in for a nap. Moments of gentleness. Sometimes I’d close my eyes—not sleeping, but taking in the joy of being watched over.
What would you give to see your son the way I do—held, known, and kept safe? The pregnancy I endured was followed by his birth, which taught me about love. His soft newborn fingers anchored me. Danny has always been fidgety and funny. Never frail. He was climbing the sides of his crib before he should have. There’s no bad blood in him. His first word was “see” which I thought was “C” or sea, but maybe it wasn’t either of those. Perhaps it was just a sliding s-sound, not a lens to how he saw the world. I needed to see him, not you, when I looked into his face. That happened the moment he was placed in my arms. You were gone.
At night I hold him close to my chest until he falls into a deep sleep. Sometimes I get up, find my sketchpad and draw him in charcoal. Danny’s copper hair surrounds his triangular face in soft ringlets. His nose is turned up, almost girlish, while his cheeks remain yours. Prominent. It’s hard to believe he’s my son, conceived at a time when all I wanted was to be loved. Back then you made life bearable.
I remember our first summer, the one where you set up the sprinkler in the backyard. You told me you had a surprise. We spent the morning on the couch studying Ralph Gibson’s monochrome images. You explained the idea between boundaries and opposition in his work. I was more interested in the outstretched hand in the photo that belonged to Mary Ellen. Who’s she?
She’s you! You closed the book. Get ready.
Springing into action, I took off my clothes, a gazelle leaping in the air towards the backyard. The tripod, reflectors, and umbrellas had been set up hours ago. In motion I felt most alive—naked, happy, and hot as you turned on the sprinklers and adjusted everything just the way you wanted. I jumped over and over until you pulled me back and I realized that what you created was a rainbow.
See how water droplets make prisms. It sounded like you said prisons. You hugged me tight. Precious. And I did feel precious.
Danny, like you, photographs the world through his eyes. Yet surprisingly, he is more like Ryder, accepting the reality he chooses. Breathe and push, then cutting the umbilical cord, son, son … we have a son. Can a photo fully capture that feeling?
I find the gallery. Should I trust you to have included everything I asked for? But I suppose it all won’t fit in a sealed envelope. I want the dog collar that is scented with the perfume you sprayed on me. I want the tiny, pretty dresses, the lightly soiled garments you demanded I take off and keep unwashed, the shoes, the rope and the sheets. I want my virginity back.
Blown up three times its actual size and hanging on the wall is a faceless black and white image of me with my back arched. It’s amazing. The yard with its English garden and birdbath is blurred, though recognizable, but disaffirms what I’m feeling. The purity and innocence of the image isn’t real. I once asked you why rainbows arc and you answered in a way that felt surprisingly sad. Sunlight takes a complicated path through each water droplet. I didn’t understand.
A tear of delight slides down my cheek as I see you standing there. Staring at the monochrome images, I can still hear your camera clicking. A girl becoming a woman offers a unique beauty that reflects the contrast between clarity and confusion. You saw that. Hanging on the wall is a child wrestling with life’s complexity—blinded by sunlight and sensuality. At fourteen I asked you a question. Will I know when I find the right subject? You knew what you had captured. By fifteen, I’d learned a subject by its very nature has power. My eyes were opened.
Up close and viewing the image as an object, I have to applaud you. The under-lit bow of my back—arched to mirror a rainbow—holds a semicircle of an optical illusion. I never realized how good a photographer you were.
“It’s very good.” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“You were in such a rush to grow up.”
Lowering the f-stop increased the aperture opening, limited the depth of field and spotlighted your subject. The dreamy-soft backgrounds, exceedingly crafted to be out of focus, separated me from everything else.
Rain starts. Then stops. You chase behind as I begin to run away, but there’s not a chance of being caught. A rainbow appears and I hear a voice from long ago. It’s an optical illusion where a number of conditions must be met. Its prismatic curve is a trick of light. When your eyes looked at me I wanted more. More of everything.
