Chad returned to the tray of developer, where his photo had turned black. He tossed it out and started again. My portrait already done, I hovered around in a sort of afterglow; I had nowhere else to be.
Chad had spent the day out at Eagle Bluffs, a conservation area of mostly forest and wetland that, because this was Missouri, was better known for its fishing and hunting than for birding and wildlife. His portrait was of a weathered old fisher-man, and it was exquisite. Chad had captured the man’s features, his concentration; he’d caught the history of the man’s face in perfect light, shadow, and depth.
It was because I’d recommitted to my work with Pam that I’d chosen her for my portrait. She was among a minority of women on the science faculty at Mizzou, and I thought it would make a nice piece for my portfolio. I’d photographed her in the lab, whipping out my camera with the sole intention of getting the task done, not thinking about the light, the angle, or of taking a variety of shots. When the image first emerged in the developer, I liked what I saw—Dr. Pam Harrison in her white lab coat, bent over a microscope, a wisp of dark hair falling from behind her ear, eye wide open at the eyepiece. But later, when I saw Chad’s portrait, I glanced over at mine, already hung to dry, and saw that it looked flat, emotionless, static. Most of all, it seemed to be a symbol of everything I had in store for myself: a dull, colorless life of feathers and data and little else.
I looked away from the image of Pam’s face and, trying to distract myself, leaned over the sink as Chad agitated a new piece of photo paper. I watched the image of a bird emerge, a wood duck he must’ve seen at Eagle Bluffs while he was shooting the portrait.
“Wow,” I murmured. “She’s beautiful.” The image was black and white but captured the gray scale of the female of the species perfectly: her smooth-feathered face, her white-shadowed black eyes, her salt-speckled breast.
And then I noticed that the image was a little blurry, that Chad was agitating the photo more vigorously than he needed to, as if to hurry up the process—and that his lens hadn’t been focused on the wood duck in the foreground but on a woman, long-haired and smiling, stretched out seductively on a blanket.
I released my prints from their clothespins and stuffed them into my folder. I mumbled that I had to go, and Chad, still busy with his photo, paused and looked at me.
“It’s just a photo,” he said, in a weary, halfhearted way, as if we’d had this discussion a hundred times before and he couldn’t decide whether to try to convince me to stay.
I flung the door open as I left, flipping on the overhead light, exposing his print. I heard his muffled curses as I walked down the long hallway.
Breaking up, such as it was, happened as naturally and unceremoniously as getting together had, as if it was meant to be all along. He never knew about the pregnancy.
BEFORE I LEAVE the clinic, they give me a brochure on birth control, as if I hadn’t known better, as if this had been a mistake of ignorance rather than impulsiveness.
The weeks leading to my appointment had been excruciating. I felt that everyone who looked at me must’ve been able to tell; I worried that Chad would find out somehow, even though there was no way he could possibly know. And my choice seemed inevitable no matter how I looked at it, no matter how many ways I tried to imagine another outcome.
As I walk slowly back to campus, I think of Chad’s photograph, the wood duck, how lovely it was. It feels hypocritical that I wouldn’t dream of eating an animal but that I hadn’t thought twice about ending a pregnancy. Maybe I’ve begun to live too closely by the rules of the animal kingdom, where sacrifice makes sense, where it’s necessary and just and often more humane.
THIS YEAR I’M dreading my visit home more than usual. Alec’s family has just moved to Kansas City, so he’s spending the holidays there. My cat, Ginger, is gone—she’d disappeared after I left for college. The first time I came home to find her missing, I put up signs and checked the shelter, to no avail. I feel her absence most acutely at night, alone in my childhood bed, and I can only hope that she’s found a new family, one that welcomes her more than mine did.
My father’s empty seat at the table is filled by Mark’s new son, Christopher, the first grandchild. I’m watching the baby examine a soft plush rattle, holding it up to his face, when my mother suddenly says to me, “Deborah, are you all right?”
I swing my head toward her, not realizing until that moment how intensely I’d been staring at Christopher. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look well,” she says. “You look like death warmed over.”