The Photographer

by Mary Dixie Carter

  “Thank you,” Amelia and Fritz said in unison.

  Natalie made no attempt to hide the fact that she was staring at Lucia. Natalie’s eyes moved to Lucia’s face, probably assessing her purple eye shadow, then dropped down to her hands and her fingernails and her floral nail art.

  “I recognize how important it is for you to know and understand the family who will adopt the child,” Amelia said. “You need to feel a hundred percent confident in your decision. We all need to feel that way.”

  I focused on slow and sustained breathing, low into my core.

  Fritz interjected. “So what are you looking for here?”

  I detected a hint of hostility in his voice, and it seemed Lucia did too.

  “Um…” Lucia hesitated.

  A hard glint flashed in Amelia’s eyes. “What Fritz means,” she said, “and what we all know, is that you want to find—”

  Fritz interrupted. “Let Lucia answer.”

  “I can’t support the baby,” she said. “I can barely support myself.” She looked down at her fingernails self-consciously. Perhaps she’d noticed Natalie studying them. She examined her thumbnail closely, as if dissatisfied with that one in particular. Lucia had all of the power in this situation, but didn’t appear to recognize her leverage.

  “Where’s the father?” Fritz asked. I was glad that subject was on the table, because it went straight to the question of character.

  Amelia leaned over the marble coffee table and handed Lucia a platter of strawberries and grapes.

  Lucia took the platter and held it in her lap, though it was a serving tray and not intended for her to keep. “I don’t speak to him.” Her face flushed slightly.

  Fritz adjusted his glasses on his nose. “Were you in a relationship with him?”

  “It depends on what you say a relationship is.” Lucia attempted a laugh.

  “Did you live together?” Fritz sipped his IPA, then set the bottle on the coffee table in front of him.

  “For a little while.” Lucia gripped the sides of the fruit platter.

  “If he came back?”

  Lucia looked down and realized that she was still holding the platter. She put a grape in her mouth and then placed the fruit tray on the coffee table. “He won’t.”

  “But if he did, would you change your mind?”

  She bit her lip and shook her head.

  I could tell that Lucia wasn’t accustomed to lying. It didn’t come easily to her. Good liars propel their brains and their bodies toward their story with momentum, and they stick the landing. A moment’s hesitation will kill you.

  Fritz squinted. He didn’t believe Lucia. Granted, he was asking about an unlikely scenario, but still it was obvious to him and to me that she would definitely change her mind if her boyfriend returned.

  “It’s wonderful that you’re so close to your mother.” Amelia pushed her hair behind her ears. “Just terrific.” Amelia’s desperation hung in the air. “You know what I didn’t mention is that you and Natalie have something in common. You both really like to draw!”

  “Wow,” Lucia said. As soon as she addressed Natalie, she became far more relaxed. “That’s cool. What do you draw?” Lucia rested one hand on her lower abdomen. I wondered if the baby was kicking.

  “Unicorns mostly.” Natalie spoke in a barely audible whisper.

  “I love unicorns,” Lucia said with apparent sincerity.

  Natalie smiled with half of her mouth.

  “You two have a lot in common!” Amelia cried. She was trying to fill the room with enough merriment to distract from her daughter’s unfriendly tone.

  Natalie made eye contact with Lucia. “What are your religious beliefs?”

  A tingling sensation traveled down my limbs. This line of discussion was the best chance I had.

  Amelia’s body jerked in Natalie’s general direction. Her hand reached toward Natalie’s face as if she might be able to stop the words coming out of her daughter’s mouth.

  Lucia placed both hands on her abdomen. “I’m Catholic.”

  “We’re Jewish.” Natalie projected her voice through the room like a stage actor.

  “OK,” Lucia said.

  “Do you go to church?” Natalie asked.

  “Sometimes.” Lucia scratched her arm and then her shoulder, like she had more than one bug bite.

  “We don’t go to synagogue. Dad’s a lapsed Jew.” Natalie spoke as if she were describing the weather on a particularly lovely day. “Mom’s agnostic.”

  When I saw the color drain from Amelia’s face, I had a pang of guilt, but the guilt didn’t last long. For the most part, I felt relief and pride in the role I’d played helping Natalie to find her voice. Wasn’t she just speaking her truth?

  “OK.” Lucia crossed her legs, a stab at modesty, perhaps, but a considerable effort for a pregnant woman.

  Fritz appeared pleased by the exchange. Was he thinking of me? Of our earlier conversation?

  “The house is warm.” Amelia fanned herself. She made a show of going to the thermostat and turning it down. The house wasn’t actually warm at all. She returned to offer Lucia more fruit and vegetables, which Lucia declined. She offered her pumpkin bread, which Lucia also declined.

  Natalie knelt on the floor next to the pumpkin bread and picked up the sharp knife. “My Aunt Marjorie made us the pumpkin bread,” Natalie said as she gestured with the knife in her hand. “Aunt Marjorie’s a stay-at-home mom, so she has time for stuff like that. Mom works really hard. She uses her brain in a lot of different ways. But not for pumpkin bread.” She put half a slice of bread in her mouth.

  I could sense Amelia’s dismay, but I doubt that Lucia was able to.

  “Lucia, do you like to cook?” Amelia asked.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I love to cook. It doesn’t come naturally, but I do try. What’s most important to me is the idea of a home. That’s why I wanted to study architecture, because I was drawn to the idea that the design of a home can bring together a family. Fritz and I work on residences.” She turned to Fritz and clasped his hand in hers. He allowed her to take his hand. “We work with families to help create a unifying space. I think that cooking is another way to bring together a family. It’s all part of the same thing, which is how do you use your home, how do you live in your home, how do you bring your family together in your home?”

  It was a good save. I was impressed with Amelia’s dexterity.

  Lucia uncrossed and crossed her legs again. Give it up, girlfriend, I wanted to tell her.

  “Do you have a lot of family nearby?” Lucia addressed Amelia and Fritz.

  “We see my sister, Marjorie, almost every weekend,” Amelia said. “My parents retired and they moved to Florida, but they visit several times a year. And same with Fritz’s parents; they’re regular visitors!”

  I studied Fritz’s face, then Natalie’s, trying to judge how much of the statement was true, but neither betrayed anything. I had never heard Marjorie’s name mentioned or been aware of any family member visiting the Straubs so far. Amelia was a good liar.

  “Who stays with Natalie when you’re both working?” Lucia asked.

  “Delta is our wonderful family friend.” Amelia stood and held her hands out in my direction as if presenting me at court. “And she stays with Natalie a lot.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were their babysitter?” Lucia seemed to like me more once she had this piece of information.

  “Well, no,” Amelia jumped in. “Delta’s an amazing photographer. She has a son too. Jasper. She just babysits because she loves Natalie. That’s not like … what she does.”

  “I used to babysit a lot,” Lucia said. “I still do.”

  Amelia beamed. “Babysitting is a great thing to do.”

  “How old were the children you babysat for?” Natalie asked.

  “Babies mostly. Infants.”

  “Maybe you should babysit for your baby,” Natalie said, “after someone adopts her.”

&
nbsp; A silence fell over the room. Amelia ate several grapes at once.

  “I love spending time with Natalie,” I said.

  I saw several ways to slow the progress of the adoption, if not prevent it altogether. However, now the whole idea might self-destruct on its own, in which case, no need to risk a perception of meddling.

  “May I use your restroom?” Lucia asked.

  I jumped up. “I’ll show you where it is.” I walked ahead of Lucia down the hall. As we had both removed our shoes at the door, our socks slid on the reclaimed elm wood floor. Once out of the Straubs’ earshot, I turned back to her. “I really hope it works out.” I placed my hand on her shoulder and smiled warmly. Across the front of her knit sweater, pale blue and silver reversible sequins spelled out the word WONDER, except the O in WONDER was replaced by a heart. “I think Natalie’s terribly lonely. It would be great for her to have a sister. That way, the two girls would have each other. And then it wouldn’t even matter if their parents weren’t…” I paused and counted to three. “A sisterly bond is so important.”

  Lucia studied me as though I were a strange animal she had never seen before.

  “I’d love to take your photograph.” I patted the camera around my neck. “The light across your face right now is breathtaking.”

  She shrugged and smiled.

  I snapped thirty shots of her, which took all of ten seconds on my digital camera. One or two of them would be superb.

  “If they turn out well, I’d like to use a photo of you on the maternity section of my website. And in return, I’d give you as many prints as you’d like.”

  Lucia nodded, which I took to mean yes. I quickly typed her email address into my phone.

  “Pregnancy does something to certain women and, all of a sudden, it’s like everything beautiful in the world is in their eyes and in their body,” I said. “Everything that’s positive and inspiring and lifts us up to God and to the angels. I see all of that in you. It’s the beginning of a life with complete and absolute potential there. And the woman who carries the baby, she’s the creator of that life. She has a little bit of God inside her.” I was doing my best to layer in Madonna and Child subtext, along with the suggestion that motherhood might be Lucia’s calling.

  I think I succeeded with my message, because she placed her hand on her midriff, and her expression turned wistful.

  “Does he know?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” She knew exactly what I was asking.

  “The father of the child. Does he know he has a baby?” I asked gently.

  Lucia looked out at the backyard, as if something there had distracted her.

  I tried to infuse my voice with tenderness. “You should send him one of the photos. It’s the right thing to do.”

  * * *

  As I was reentering the library, I saw Amelia and Natalie standing in the far corner, near the fireplace and bookshelves. Amelia was speaking to Natalie in a hushed voice: “You should be able to figure that out on your own.”

  “Don’t you want her to know who we are?” Natalie chewed on her nails.

  “Your father and I will take the lead. It is not your place.” Amelia rounded her shoulders and back, exactly as my cat, Eliza, sometimes did. Her feline bearing came into sharp relief when she’d been crossed. I imagined using Photoshop to create an amalgam of Amelia’s image and my cat’s. A cat woman.

  Fritz interjected from across the room. “I disagree—”

  “Fritz,” Amelia cut him off.

  I wondered if Fritz and Natalie heard the steeliness in Amelia’s voice.

  Lucia appeared seconds later. Amelia led her back to the sofa, then picked up a photo album from the coffee table and sat next to Lucia in my seat. “These are photos of Natalie as a baby.” Together, they flipped through the pages.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen that album.” I walked behind the sofa so that I had a view over Lucia’s shoulder. Long, slow, deep breaths.

  The majority of the pictures were poorly shot photos of Amelia and Natalie on the beach. I surmised that Fritz had taken them, because he wasn’t in any of them. Natalie looked to be a year old, like she had only just learned to walk. She was wearing a bikini that was covered with watermelon slices and a matching watermelon sun hat. In one photo, her feet were buried in the sand with only the tips of her toes peeking out. She was laughing. In the next photo, Natalie held a handful of sand and appeared to be dropping her sand into a bucket of water. Next, she was back at the waves, adding water to her bucket. In another photo, she was splashing in the waves. Wet sand covered her legs and arms completely and was also caked into her hair. Amelia, who was visible in the background, was sitting on a beach chair reading a magazine. She looked well groomed, as though she had just had her hair blown out. No sand on her face or body.

  For some reason, Amelia (I assumed it was Amelia) had also chosen to include a photo of Natalie crying. I never include photos of children crying. It’s a rookie mistake. The kid looks bad and the parents look worse. In this case, the child was crying and Amelia appeared to be at a loss, lacking any maternal instinct. From the photo, I was able to see Amelia’s limitations. As soon as her child started to cry, as soon as she had something unpleasant to contend with, she was inclined to hand the child off.

  “Natalie, you were a beautiful baby,” Amelia said to her daughter, who’d taken her place back on the arm of the sofa.

  “She’s a beautiful girl,” I said. Amelia missed so many opportunities to boost Natalie’s self-confidence.

  “That was the year we went to Florida for my father’s seventieth birthday celebration,” Amelia said. “We spent every day at the ocean. When we got back to Brooklyn, Natalie kept asking for the water. She was always a water baby.”

  “I like the water too,” Lucia said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Lucia, want me to show you around the house?” Fritz asked.

  I was surprised by Fritz’s question. Surprised that he was engaging with Lucia to such a degree. Maybe he saw this as his only opportunity to question her without Amelia hovering over his shoulder. Maybe he wanted her. I had a much better body than Lucia, but I wasn’t nineteen. An image of Fritz and Lucia in the master bedroom flashed through my mind.

  Lucia followed him up the stairs.

  Amelia appeared irritated. She was unwise not to follow them. She turned to Natalie, picking up on their earlier conversation: “It’s really important to me,” she whispered. “I need your help.”

  Natalie didn’t answer, which probably infuriated her mother.

  Standing behind Amelia, I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Lucia is very pretty.”

  She turned around to look at me and smiled gratefully. “Yes. I know.”

  “And bright.”

  “Yes.” Amelia stood and circled the sofa to approach me. “But she does seem concerned about something.”

  “Uneasy,” I said. “Under the circumstances.”

  “Do you think—”

  “It could be—” I stopped mid-sentence.

  “Yes?” Amelia asked.

  I put my arms around Amelia’s shoulders and could feel her body trembling. “I’m so happy that you found her.”

  “It could be what?”

  “She’s obviously a caring person.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I would guess that she’ll care for the baby.”

  A dark cloud came over Amelia’s brow. She leaned toward me so she could whisper and still be heard. “You think she’ll change her mind?”

  “I think she’ll care for the baby,” I said quietly, “meaning she’ll want what’s best for the baby.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you were going to say.” Amelia pushed her hair behind her ears again, a nervous gesture to which I was growing accustomed.

  “No. I really don’t think she’ll change her mind,” I said.

  Her hands were so tense, it looked like electric currents were shooting through them.

&nb
sp; “If she makes a commitment,” I said, “I think she’ll stick to that commitment. She strikes me as that kind of person.”

  “Right.”

  Natalie was silent. I felt almost certain she wanted the same thing I did.

  Amelia paced the room, from one end to the other and then back again.

  “Is the father Latinx too?” I asked.

  “What?” Amelia stopped her pacing and stood still.

  “Just wondering if the baby’s father is Latinx?” I had a feeling that the question of the child’s race and ethnicity was floating around in the back of Amelia’s mind, and I thought it was to my advantage to flush it out. Nevertheless, I knew I was treading on dangerous ground.

  “The father’s race is not important.” Amelia’s mouth pinched into a hard, straight line.

  “I didn’t know … if you and Fritz care whether the baby looks like you,” I said, “or like Natalie’s sibling.”

  “The father is white,” she said. “However, it’s irrelevant. Lucia’s family is from the Dominican Republic, but she’s perfectly lovely, and she has relatively light skin.” She smiled.

  I hadn’t realized that the father was white. It was possible my strategy was backfiring. I knew that Amelia would have preferred that the mother be white too, but she didn’t want to acknowledge that the race of the child made a difference to her, so she might dig her heels in even more, just to prove something.

  “Would you like me to take some photographs of Lucia and you together?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Shoot some photographs?” I pointed to the camera, which was still around my neck.

  “Why?” She held her hands over her eyes, as if shielding them from bright sunlight.

  “Just documentation.” I thought a photo of Lucia and Amelia together could highlight their differences—differences I could make even starker with a little editing.

  “No!” she said.

  I felt pressure in my lungs.

  “I can’t imagine anything less appropriate than that,” she said. “Are you crazy?”

  I felt the blood behind my eyes. I felt my scalp burning. “It’s possible that you’ll end up with several choices. And you may want a reminder of who she is and what she looks like.” I focused on slow and sustained breathing.