“Yay for the girl,” Joy declares.
“Absolutely,” I second, because while she’s sincere, I have a point to make, here in this house, where my mother was held back in so many regards. “She built a career when she was in her forties and competing against men in their twenties. We should all be so strong.”
“Did she teach you photography?”
“No, but I took over her equipment and found what worked for me.”
“Was Papa okay with that?”
She surprises me. “What do you mean?”
“It was your Mom’s thing, and they got divorced.”
“Uh… uh… that’s an interesting question.” I’ve always clumped his dislike of my art with his general disapproval of what I did. He desperately wanted a son. I was the second disappointment for him in that sense. Though he and I had shared intermittent moments of connection, I always felt it was a lost cause. I was never quite good enough.
So maybe his annoyance with Mom was to blame for this part of it, at least. Crossing to the bookshelf, I take her camera—my very first—from the next-to-top shelf. “Could never give this away,” I murmur with a swell of affection. I brush the dust from the top with my thumb, savoring the old familiar feel of the shutter speed dial, the film winder, the on-off lever.
“This isancient,” Joy says.
“Not really. At least, not in years. The technology of picture-taking has grown so fast that it justseemsancient.”
Returning the camera to its shelf with a gentle stroke and a promise to hold it again later, I return to the other photos it helped me make. People pictures aside, the rest are black-and-white shots of the beach, many taken from the very same spot at the base of the bluff, but so different, one to the next, that I impress myself.
“This is what our condo is missing,” Joy states.
“My pictures are on the wall there.”
“But they aren’t old ones, like ones with history?”
“Don’t confuse black-and-white with old, sweetie. Besides, I have black-and-white shots hanging at home.”
“I know, Mom, but, I mean, look at these? These pictures tell a story.” She is focused on a grouping of seascapes above the bed.
Her comment is innocent enough. But when I look at her, something squeezes my heart. Here she is, my daughter, in the bedroom where my own childhood was spent—and hownotto think of my mother in this, too? Joy was a toddler when she died, too young for them to know one another, and still Mom helped me raise her.What would my mother do?I often asked myself when I didn’t know how to handle my child’s quirks. Eleanor Aldiss had been a single mom too, in her way.
Standing in this place now, I’m caught in dusty little cobwebs of happiness, grief, confusion and purpose. But there’s something else. For not the first time today, I feel pride, because Joy is right. These pictures do tell a story. The fact that she gets this brings tears to my eyes.
Wrapping my arms around her from behind, I rest my chin on her shoulder and inhale her sweet scent.
“The ocean,” Joy breathes in a way that says she’s imagining the stories. “Time. Fog. Sand.” She angles to meet my eyes. “I want to see more people pictures.”
“You will. They’re in the attic.”
She lights up. But my mind is a step ahead. I’m wondering why my father went up there this morning, only to stumble on the way down and break his wrist.
The wordguncomes to mind.
Access to the attic is through the closet in the spare bedroom. Since that room is directly across the hall from mine, I’m quickly there. I see the same large, eyelet-covered bed, the same bench at its foot, the same dresser. And the closet. Its door is open to a tangle of hangers collected over the years, lit now by the attic light falling through the open hatch. Bisecting its beam, the stairs slant to a point just inches above the wood floor. These stairs, too, are wood, and while they’re secured by a metal frame and therefore sturdy, they are narrow. I understand why Dad lost his footing. Lord knew we all had done it once or twice.
Several books lie scattered at the foot of the stairs. They are blue leather and vaguely warped, but as familiar to me as the old camera in my room.
“Lawyer’s Diaries,” I tell Joy. Crouching, I finger the once bright, now dull lettering on the front. “Dad wrote in them every night.”
Joy squats beside me and lifts one. “1996. Crazy.” She flips it open.
I flip it shut. “Confidential.”
Her eyes meet mine, her face an adorably bemusedwhere-did-that-come-frommask. “Seriously? After so long? Like I’ll recognize names—or even understand what’s in there? What is in there?”
