It was cropped tight: Daniel and me, our heads close, his arm around my shoulders, my face tipped up and laughing.
It looked intimate.
“I found this last month,” she said. “I sent it to Andrew today. I couldn’t stay quiet after seeing those babies. He’s gone to speak with Daniel.”
It looked intimate.
The room tilted. “He’s what?”
“He wanted answers, dear. Somebody had to give them.”
Andrew was out there discussing my faithfulness with someone else, while I sat here, cut open, begging his voicemail to love me.
“He’s what?”
I looked at the photograph again.
The gingham tablecloth. The paper plates.
Andrew’s cousin’s birthday barbecue, last summer. Daniel had hugged me while the crowd was singing.
I looked at the photograph again.
“Andrew was right beside us,” I said. “You’ve cut him out.”
“And that makes the way you’re looking at Daniel all right?”
“It makes your proof a family photograph.” I turned to my mother. “Mom, find the original in the family group chat. The whole picture.”
“You’ve cut him out.”
She scrolled, then held her phone toward me. There was Andrew, holding the birthday cake.
Then I picked up my phone and called Daniel.
It rang once.
“Em? Andrew’s here,” Daniel said.
It rang once.
“Bring him back. His mother is here, and I have something he needs to see. She’s going to explain it in front of both of us.”
“We’re on our way. Twenty minutes.”
I set the phone down.
My mother-in-law’s smile had gone thin.
“Bring him back.”
“Honey, you’ve had a terrible day,” she said, in her best soothing voice. “Why don’t you rest first? We can sort this out tomorrow.”
“No.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“Why don’t you rest first?”
“I am,” I said. “And we’re doing it now.”
***
Andrew came in first, with Daniel a step behind.
His eyes were red.
He stopped when he saw the photographs spread across my blanket.
“And we’re doing it now.”
And my heart leaped. It actually leaped.
After hours of wanting him, there he was, and every cell in my body wanted to say you’re here, hold her, look at her.
Then I remembered why he hadn’t been there to begin with, and the feeling went sour.
there he was
“Look at what your mother sent you.” I held out her cropped photograph. “And look at this.”
I turned my mother’s phone toward him.
“You were right behind us, holding the birthday cake.”
He leaned in.
“And look at this.”
