Pictures of You

by Caroline Leavitt

  She pointed at the sky. “Hey. Sun’s gone.”

  “I guess I’d better go.”

  “I’ll walk you,” she said, and he brightened.

  “Really? You will? You’d do that?”

  “Of course I will.”

  The whole walk to his house, he didn’t stop talking. At first, he asked her lots of photography questions. Could he capture even a stone in midair? “Yup,” she said. “Put the shutter speed up to one thousandth. You can stop the action.” How could he get more of what he wanted in a shot? “Zoom lens would give you a really tight shot of the bird,” she told him. “If you use a wide-angle lens, the bird will look like an ant against the sky!” He nodded, his small face serious. But then, Sam began talking about other things, as if he were widening his world to her. He told her that in school they were studying Native Americans, but not the gross stuff, like scalping. He said he was taking more and more photographs. “I’m trying to really see things, the way you told me,” he said. His whole body was bright with excitement, and he kept making these little jumps beside her. “Wasn’t it fun skipping stones?” he asked. “Didn’t you have a great time?”

  “I did,” she said. “Come on, let’s cross the street while we have the light.” She was striding out into the street, when he reached out and grabbed her hand. She felt those small fingers in hers and she looked down at him, amazed and delighted, not taking her eyes away until he let go of her hand again.

  When they got to his house, she hesitated. If Charlie saw her, no matter that she had walked Sam home just to make sure he was safe, he would be upset.

  “My dad’s not home yet,” Sam said, “but I have my own key.” He showed it to her, proudly. She waited for him to get to the porch. He turned at the door and gave her a salute, which made her laugh, and then he went into the house. She stood there, watching, waiting until the lights had turned on, warming the rooms inside.

  At least for tonight, she didn’t have to worry about him.

  SHE WENT BACK to the beach the next few Saturdays, half for herself, half hoping to see Sam, but he wasn’t there. She skipped stones, but when she managed to get four skips, it felt a little empty because Sam wasn’t there to share the pleasure with her. She missed him but knew that he wasn’t hers to miss.

  Well, maybe it was for the best.

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, just after New Year’s, Isabelle was at Beautiful Baby, closing up late one night, when she found Sam sleeping on the wooden bench by the front door. She bent down, astonished. “Sam,” she said, gently, and his eyes flew open. He shivered in the cold. “What are you doing here?” she said. “It’s much too cold to be outside like this! You must be freezing!”

  “I wanted to see you.” He yawned and his lids fluttered shut again.

  Isabelle took out her cell to call Charlie, gently pushing Sam over and settling down beside him. She was too tired to care that Charlie would probably blame her for his son’s running off to find her. She couldn’t tell Sam not to come see her, either, because seeing him was exactly the thing she wanted most. “I was just coming out of work and he was asleep on a bench,” she told Charlie. She looked down at Sam, at the way his mouth was dropping open as he breathed.

  “Sleeping on a bench? Is he okay?” Isabelle heard the panic in his voice. “He was supposed to be at a friend’s! He never even called me!”

  “He’s fine.”

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t move. Beautiful Baby’s on Denten Street, right?”

  She waited with Sam on the bench. She tried to imagine how Sam had known where she worked, when he might have followed her, and how it was possible that she hadn’t felt him trailing behind her. He moved in his sleep, pressing closer against her. Her hand hovered over his hair, and then she let herself stroke it back. “It’s okay,” she said.

  It didn’t take Charlie long to get there. He leaped out of the car and came toward them, his shirt askew, his hair a mess, and for a minute, she braced herself. This time, though, he looked at her. He actually saw her. And then his eyes swept over Sam and he scooped his son up in his arms. “It’s okay,” he said in a low voice. “It’s okay.”

  He looked up at her again, so forcefully that she stepped back. “I’m just glad you were here,” he said, and she nodded. He carried Sam to the car, buckling him into the backseat.

  “I’ll be going, too,” she said.

  He looked around. “Where’s your car?”

  “I walked.”

  “No, no. Don’t be silly. It’s cold out. I’ll drive you home,” he said.

  She didn’t want to tell him that she had trouble being a passenger in a car. “I like walking,” she said. “Even in winter.”

  “Look, I know this is awkward. For both of us. But please. Let me drive you. I thought Sam was at a sleepover. I’m just glad you were here.”

  She hesitated. It was later than she usually walked, and in the distance, she heard some kids catcalling. Sam was dozing, but Charlie watched her. He was standing so close to her, she could have reached out and touched the side of his face. She swallowed hard. If she said no, he’d leave with Sam. She wouldn’t have more time with him. But if she said yes, she’d have to get in a car and she’d have to do it without the help of a pill.

  The ride was only five minutes. People could die in seconds. They could drown in three inches of water. She thought of how her mother had once told her that all good things had a price. She looked at Charlie, at the way his hair fell into the back of his collar, at the smooth line where his neck met his shoulder. “Okay,” she said finally.

  He opened the door for her. When she bent to get in the car, she took a deep breath. I can do this, she told herself. He put his hand over her head so she wouldn’t bump it, a gesture so simple and startling that, for a moment, she couldn’t move. She wanted to put her hand over his, and when he took it away, she missed it. When she sat down, he got in the car and then leaned across her. She could smell the leather of his jacket. “Seat belt,” he said, pulling it out for her.

  She waited for the motor to go on, for the moment when she would feel as if she were suffocating. Her throat locked. Charlie turned on the radio. “Is music okay?” he asked. “Sam sleeps through everything. Movies, even fireworks. Ever since he was a baby.”

  She glanced at the backseat. Sam’s shoulders were rising and falling, his eyes were rolling with dreams. “That’s a gift to be able to sleep like that,” she said.

  “Once he’s asleep, he stays asleep,” Charlie said. Charlie was a careful driver. He took his time, as if he were considering the road. He didn’t care or get angry when another car beeped at him and when a dog ran out into the street, Charlie slowed to a stop, waiting until he saw the dog was safely on the other side. When he turned down the road, Isabelle saw the group of kids who had been catcalling, six of them waving beer bottles at the car, and one of them threw the bottle, so she heard the crash of glass on the street. If she had walked home, she would have run right into them. She circled her arms about herself. “Cold?” Charlie asked, and she put her arms back down in her lap.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  He drove past the bowling alley and the diner, and the streets began to look and feel more deserted. Isabelle couldn’t remember the night ever being so quiet. She tried to think of something to say.

  She thought of all the times she had driven with Luke. He kept the radio up loud and liked to sing along rather than talk to her. When she did talk, he’d say, “Let me just hear the rest of this song,” or he’d want to talk about the bar.

  “Your photograph was good,” Charlie said quietly. He turned the wheel, gliding the car into another lane.

  “You saw the one of Sam?” Isabelle looked at him cautiously.

  “I did,” Charlie said.

  She had never talked about her work all that much with Luke. She’d show him her best photos and he’d praise them, and her, but he never really understood what she was trying to do, or why a pic
ture was good; and when she tried to explain, he’d say, “I just love them because I love you,” which didn’t feel like enough.

  “Sam showed me. All he wants to do is take pictures now.”

  “What I do for work isn’t really taking pictures. I work at a kid factory. People come in off the street when they want snapshots. Sometimes I do schools, weddings, sweet sixteens. No one really cares if the pictures are any good. They just want nice pictures of their kid.” Her voice trailed. She turned around and glanced at Sam. His head lolled. “He’s dreaming,” Isabelle said, “but the strap is too close around his neck.” She unbuckled herself for a moment and leaned over to adjust it and then sat back down, quickly strapping herself back in.

  “That was nice, what you just did,” Charlie said, and Isabelle felt a pleased flush.

  He turned down another road. “I saw the pictures. And I saw you. At the Ready Diner, by the accident. That’s a really long trip.”

  Isabelle froze. She tried to speak but no words came out. Panic rose in her like steam. “I needed to go there,” she finally said.

  “So did I,” Charlie said.

  They were both silent for a moment.

  “Let’s be honest,” Charlie blurted, and she turned to look at him. “This is really about Sam. I don’t know what to do about any of this that’s going on with Sam. I don’t know what’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing. All I know is that I would think you would be the last person in the world Sam would want to be close to, and instead he wants to be with you all the time. He seems to need you and I just don’t understand why.”

  Isabelle felt as if her tongue were weighted with stones. “I know you don’t want him near me, and I understand that—”

  Charlie shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. He’s doing better. I bought him a camera and it makes him so goddamned happy. And what I want to say is … how can I care about his being with you if he’s doing better? Isn’t that what’s most important? Sam? It doesn’t matter what I think or feel anymore. It’s all about my son. So maybe it’s all right. As long as you let me know when he comes to see you.”

  For the first time since she had gotten into the car, Isabelle turned to look at Charlie. He was watching the road, not her. She could imagine what saying this cost him. Then she thought of being able to see Sam any time she wanted, of not having to wander around the parks and the bookstore, yearning for a glimpse. Everything out in the open.

  “I’ll let you know every time,” she said.

  He stopped, pulling in at a diner.

  “Is something wrong?” she said.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  She nodded. She sat in the car, swiveling around so she could watch Sam sleep, amazed that he didn’t stir. Carefully, she reached around and brushed his hair out of his eyes. Charlie came back with two cups, packets of sugar, four kinds of tea, and a plastic tube of honey. “I didn’t know what you’d like,” he said. “So I brought everything.”

  “A choice! That’s so kind,” she said.

  They sat, drinking the hot tea and talking. Charlie told her about his work, how he had uncovered a fireplace stuffed with beer cans, how a light fixture a client was about to throw out because it was painted black got a spot of stripper dripped on it and revealed it was solid brass. When he talked about renovations, his whole face lit up, and it made Isabelle think about what Charlie must have been like before the accident.

  “You wouldn’t love where I live now,” Isabelle said. “It’s just a rental.”

  “Even a rental can be beautiful.”

  They finished their tea. In the backseat, Sam snored faintly, and for a moment, Isabelle felt there was nobody else in the world, just her and this man and this sleeping boy.

  When he dropped her off, she was about to bound out, but he got out of the car faster than she did and ran around to open the door for her. She started, surprised. He didn’t tell her he’d see her again, or that he had a nice time. He simply helped her out of the car, his hand along her back for just a moment. Then he waited by the car and watched her to make sure she got inside.

  When he was gone, it felt as if a spell had broken. She stood in her apartment, her feet planted on the floor. She had ridden in a car and not broken into shards. She hadn’t felt her habitual nausea. The world hadn’t ended. It wasn’t the car or a pill that made her feel safe. It was Charlie.

  ISABELLE GOT USED to seeing Sam. He’d show up at her apartment, sometimes only staying for a glass of juice. She’d see him in the park with his camera and they’d talk. Once she set up a timer and took a quick picture of the two of them together, laughing into the lens. Each encounter was too brief for her, and every time she was about to call Charlie to tell him Sam was there, Sam somehow had to leave. “I’ll tell him,” Sam promised. She never said “Stay.” She never dared to ask for more than what she was lucky enough to have.

  It wasn’t just Sam who kept showing up. Charlie seemed to materialize as well. Just that morning, she had seen him bundling groceries into his car by the superette when she biked past on her way to the bookstore, and it had made her feel ridiculously better to think that he was buying lots of food, that he was taking care of Sam. Another time, she had spotted Charlie and Sam walking with what looked like Sam’s class, and she felt a wash of relief that he was back in the routine of school. It always startled her, seeing them, and it always somehow hurt, like having a splinter. More than anything, she wanted to stop, to talk to Sam, to see how Charlie was, but she thought better of it. She kept going.

  One afternoon, in the bookstore, Isabelle wandered to the self-help area. Earlier, Lora had told her how important it was to push ahead. “Right now, you have to work at happiness,” Lora told her. “Then, after a while, it might feel normal.”

  But looking at the bookshelves, at all the titles, made everything feel worse. When she saw I Am a Good Person, I Am a Bad Person, Isabelle wondered, What if you couldn’t tell which one you were? There was a book about talking with the dead: What would April say to her that she could bear to hear? There were courses in how to make miracles in your life, but the one she wished for—that the accident had never taken place—was an impossible one, and she didn’t think there were any more miracles for her. She couldn’t drive anymore. Her husband had impregnated his lover and her marriage was finished. She was in a dead-end job, living in a place she didn’t like, and she couldn’t leave because she was obsessed with Charlie and his son. Were there any books that could help her with that?

  “You could take a class, you know,” her friend Michelle had told her. “Study French and take yourself to Paris. Take more lit classes.”

  “With what money?”

  “Take out a loan. Everyone does.”

  Isabelle was silent, considering.

  “And you should date,” Michelle said. “It isn’t too soon to let yourself be happy.” To jump-start things, Michelle had given Isabelle’s number to some guy named Jason, and when Isabelle protested, Michelle had narrowed her eyes at her. “Luke is history. It won’t kill you to have a nice time. At least talk to him. He teaches high school history. He’s nice.”

  But Isabelle had real reservations about dating. After what she had done, how could she ever possibly have a normal life? When Jason called, they had a perfectly pleasant conversation, about films they liked, about books, and Isabelle was almost imagining she could go out—that she could pretend to be normal—when he gave a nervous laugh. “So,” he said. “I admit I’m fascinated. I saw your photograph in the papers. That must have been terrible about that accident.”

  Instantly, Isabelle shut down. “I’d rather talk about anything else,” she said. But he persisted. “I’d love to hear how it changed you.” He laughed. “I love drama.”

  Isabelle didn’t laugh, and after that, she wouldn’t go out with him. She told Michelle it was nothing personal, but she wasn’t ready.

  Well, here she was, out in a bookstore, wasn’t she? She wasn’t stuck i
n the house crying the way she used to, was she? She had gone to a New Year’s Eve party. She went to the gym. And like Lora had advised, she had even made a list of the things she was going to do, goals written down so she could see them: Drive. Leave the Cape. Get a better job. Go back to school. Written down like that, they didn’t seem so impossible. Isabelle roamed the aisles, and when she rounded a corner, she saw Charlie in the café with Sam. She stopped, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets.

  Sam was talking, and Charlie was looking at him, not the distracted way some adults did when kids talked, but as if nothing were more interesting in the world. That made her like him. There was a stack of kids’ books on the table and a muffin in front of Sam. And then suddenly, Sam laughed, and then Charlie did, and she felt giddy. They were here at a bookstore, just as if it were an ordinary day, and they were laughing. Charlie reached over and stroked Sam’s hair, so gently that it made Isabelle swallow hard. Charlie looked up, not seeing her, and for the first time she noticed how blue his eyes were. His hair so glossy. She had driven all the way home with him, but she hadn’t noticed anything except that she had felt safe. Now, though, she felt flooded. She wanted to touch his face and she felt a strange, restless knocking in her head.

  Isabelle stepped back. It was crazy what she was feeling. It was just grief and loneliness, that was all. He had been kind to her in the car and she was just responding to that. Or maybe it was seeing Charlie being tender with Sam. What did it matter what it was? She needed to leave before they saw her, before she felt anything more that she had no business feeling. Isabelle sighed and headed for the door, passing a bulletin board, when something stopped her.

  Study Photography with Master Photographers in New York.

  She pulled down a brochure. The cover showed a bunch of people with cameras, all of them crouched on a busy urban street, shooting photos. New York. Where she had always wanted to be. It was a special program you applied for, two years of intense study, and scholarships were available. All she needed was to get a portfolio together, write a statement of purpose, and apply. No one would care that she had dropped out of high school and only had her GED, that she had let money and location keep her from college. No one would know that she had killed a woman and ruined lives.