“That’s enough for today,” she says, turning away from his camera and lifting her own to the sun disappearing into the ocean. “I’m getting tired.”
It’s the final sunset. A montage of home videos and photos follows, revealing her life beyond the piers. We see Canon at birthday parties and first days of school and graduations, and his mother is there in every frame. Watching the documentary, seeing her obsession with sunsets and chasing magic hours, one could be fooled into thinking her art was all she had. Canon’s choice to include the rest pulls out the camera for a wider shot of her life beyond her art. Her life with him.
Hers was a race that had already been decided, a race against time, but the beauty was in how she ran. And I think that’s the point. Every single one of us is in that race, and a race against time is one you’ll never win.
But how will you run?
It’s not an existential question of immortality, of living forever, but a challenge of numbered days and what we do with what we have. It’s not a string of todays that become yesterdays and aspire to tomorrow, but living like there is no guarantee. Living with an urgency to say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done. To no matter what, live with what you’ll leave behind in mind.
I want to reach through the screen and touch her in hopes that her zeal, her assuredness of life in the face of a diminishing future, would rub off on me. I wish I could turn back the clock, find them on one of their piers as the sun dipped into the ocean to thank her for all she sowed into the remarkable man her son has become.
Some days I feel like that powerful, vibrant girl, the painted butterfly who flitted through the Savoy Ballroom, the wind of trumpets beneath her wings. And some days I’m that broken ballerina from Dessi’s jewelry box, my twists and turns a lurching revolution to a song composed from dust and regret. One thing I’m sure of. On any given day, the look in Canon’s eyes never changes. It’s as constant as the refrain of rising and setting suns.
I’m still sitting in the middle of the studio floor, staring up at the Polaroids of us he pinned to the line, when he comes home.
“Hey.” He leans against the doorjamb, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” I smile, gesturing to my laptop on the floor in front of me. “I was just watching your mom.”
“My mom?” He walks over, sits on the floor beside me, and peers at my screen. “Oh. Wow. I haven’t looked at this in years.”
His eyes soften and a smile crooks one corner of the stern line of his mouth.
“She was something else,” I tell him. “I see so much of her in you. It’s funny. When I was diagnosed, I only thought about the fear of dying, of living a life that was somehow less than what other people lived. Your mother embodied the opposite. She seems to become more fearless. The more the disease tries to change her, the more she becomes completely herself.”
“That’s it exactly. I think my mother was one of the earliest examples I had of looking beyond the surface. When we would go out sometimes, as her disease progressed, I would catch people looking at her with something like pity. And I would just think, you have no idea who she is. That she gets stronger every day.”
“Is that why you look at me the same way no matter how my appearance changes?”
He studies me for long, silent seconds. “No, baby.” He caresses my cheek with his thumb, smiling into my eyes. “That’s just love.”
His words, spoken with such surety, untie the last knots of anxiety and self-doubt tangled in my thoughts. He’s right. When you love someone, you truly see who they are beyond the surface. And whether I look like the headshot I proudly passed all over New York when I auditioned, or I look the way I do right now, I have to see and love myself beyond the high gloss. That first taste of unconditional love and acceptance—we should feed it to our own souls.
I reach up to pull the headscarf away, and then I peel off the sweatshirt covering the silk camisole I wear instead of a bra. For a moment, the air kisses my skin, cools the heated plane of my self-consciousness, and then, under the heat of his stare—an equal, unwavering mix of love and desire—I grow warm. I lean back on my palms and stretch my legs in front of me. I am battered. This body is a battlefield, and my limbs, once flawless, carry the scars. I trust, I hope, that they will fade in time, but I must accept who and how I am right now.
Today.
“You said before that you’d like to photograph me,” I say.
“Whenever you like,” he replies, his voice soft, subdued.
I connect my eyes and his by a single thread ofno turning backand nod to the cameras displayed on the wall. “How about right now?”
SIXTY-FIVE
Canon
“It’s a match.”
I look up from the desk in my home office. Neevah stands in the doorway, cautious excitement in her expression.
“What’d you say?” I slam my laptop shut and focus on her.
“Terry finished all her tests, and she’s a match.” She covers her mouth, catching a tiny sob/laugh, then rushing over and throwing herself in my lap. We hold each other and I absorb the sigh of relief that shudders through her. I don’t know if it’s hers or mine, but our bodies share it. I pull back to rain kisses on her cheeks and nose and lips, resting my forehead against hers for a few seconds to let this sink in.
Neevah has a kidney.
She’ll always have to manage this disease, but getting a new kidney should drastically improve things for her.
