Pictures of You (27 page)

“Was it the dark?” she said, crouching by him. “Lots of people get spooked by it.”

“I couldn’t see you! I couldn’t find you!” He leaned closer to her so the warmth of her body seemed to surround him. He snuggled against her side.

She stroked back his hair. “But I was right there. I was there all the time.”

He snuffled. “Where do you go when you aren’t with us?”

She startled. “I go to work. I’m home. I’m all sorts of places.”

He wondered if she was with his mom, but he didn’t ask. Was he allowed to?

When she was ready to leave, he got nervous. “Could I have some water?” he asked.

“It’s your house, honey. You can’t get it yourself?”

“I can’t reach the glass.”

“Sure, I will.” As soon as she was gone, he took off his watch and tucked it in the pocket of her jacket. She’d find it when she got home, and then she’d have to bring it back, visit them again.

“Here you go,” she said, handing him the water. He gulped it down, suddenly thirsty.

“See you later, alligator,” she said.

Sam grabbed up her jacket, his watch making a soft weight in the pocket. “Don’t forget your jacket!” he said, handing it to her.

She took it, and then she smiled, turning her palm to her face and kissing her fingers and then turning her hand around and waving the kiss to him as she went out the door. Transfixed, he stood as still as he could be, right in the spot where her kiss was, letting it sparkle all over him

T
HE NEXT DAY
, right in the morning, when Sam was at the kitchen table drawing a picture of a volcano for a school project,
the phone rang and Charlie picked it up. “Of course, come by later with it,” he said.

Sam felt a rush of heat go through his body. He looked at Charlie, expectant. “Isabelle,” Charlie said casually. “She found your watch in her jacket. She’ll bring it over around dinnertime the day after tomorrow”

“Maybe when she comes over, we can all go to the pizza place, too,” Sam said. “And to a movie.” He picked up a black crayon, the color of Isabelle’s hair, and studied it. It wasn’t the right color for lava, but he wanted to use it, anyway. He wanted to draw her beside the volcano. He looked up at the clock. There was a lot of time to get through before he saw Isabelle again, but at least he would see her.

I
T WAS ALMOST
spring again, the sort of soggy April that usually wreaked havoc with Sam’s asthma, but for some reason he felt better. Maybe it was because he was happy, because every weekend now, he, his dad, and Isabelle would do something. Sometimes they went to Leaning Tower of Pizza and got a pie, and Sam always got to choose the kind. Other times they went bowling, and now that the weather was nicer, they sometimes walked on the beach and all three of them skipped stones. His father didn’t have that tense look on his face that he used to have when Isabelle was around, and some days, right in the middle of the week, it was even his dad who suggested that Isabelle come over and join them for dinner or board games, which delighted Sam.

One evening, when they were all on the couch watching a movie, a western about a cowboy and his dog, Sam drowsed against Isabelle. He was in that half-sleep stage when he wasn’t sure whether he was dreaming or not. Isabelle’s hair floated around one of his shoulders like a blanket, and even though he could hear her talking to his dad, he could hear her wings rustling. She smelled like cookies and maple syrup, and she was so warm and comfortable, he just wanted to stay like this forever.

“He’s asleep,” his dad said, “maybe I’ll take him to his bed.” Sam, eyes still closed, began to spread himself out on the couch, so that his head was in Isabelle’s lap. He reached for her hand and held it, his eyes still shut, and then he heard Isabelle’s voice, soft as music.

“And maybe you won’t,” she said to Charlie, laughing. She stroked Sam’s hair, making him shiver, but he pretended to be asleep, to see what she might do or say next. “I love this boy,” she said quietly, and Sam held her hand tighter.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Sam was at school finishing his poster on the solar system when Teddy leaned over the desk, lightly punching Sam in the shoulder. “Hey,” Teddy said. “How about you come over to my house after school?” Just like that, they were friends again.

At Teddy’s, Sam sprawled over the big brown chair, picking at the fraying buttons. He didn’t know what to do with himself and he felt as if a thousand bees were buzzing inside of him. They had played cards and made grilled cheese, and both of them were restless and bored. Teddy was flipping the cards and then he threw them in the air. “I’m getting sick of rummy,” he said.

Sam didn’t even care anymore if Teddy’s mother came home suddenly because at least it would be something. Let her yell at him. Let her do whatever she wanted. He could handle it.

“We can go to my house, you know. My dad’s not there,” Sam said.

Teddy raised one brow. “Oh, yeah? What’s cool about your house?”

Sam bristled. “My dad built me a darkroom to develop film for prints. Isabelle showed him how.”

“Are they like boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Of course not,” Sam said indignantly. Isabelle and his dad had been friends for a long time, it seemed. All three of them went to the beach together and to the movies, and they had even gone
ice skating this winter, until Sam had started coughing and they had all had to go home. They were together except for the times that were just Sam and his dad. But his dad and Isabelle didn’t kiss, they didn’t hug or touch. And anyway, Isabelle was an angel. “They’re just friends,” Sam decided.

“You sure about that?” Teddy said. “How much do you know about her, anyway?”

“A lot. She’s my friend, too.”

“Oh, yeah? No grownup is a kid’s friend unless he wants something. Trust me.”

Sam shrugged, but he felt something knocking along his spine. Teddy could say whatever he wanted, but he didn’t know Isabelle. And as much as Sam sort of wanted to tell him, he’d never mention to Teddy that Isabelle was an angel, because you had to keep things like that secret. You had to have faith. Still, he could feel Teddy’s doubts, like a jellyfish sting. “What could she want from me?”

Teddy stood up. “That’s for her to know and us to find out,” Teddy said.

Sam didn’t like the way Teddy was grinning at him. “She’s nice,” Sam said.

“Well, then we need to know that, too.” Teddy tapped his fingers on the table. He grabbed his jacket. “Come on,” he said. “I just figured out what we can do today. The lock was broken on the back door of the movie theater and I bet we can sneak right in.”

T
HE FIRST FEW MONTHS
of their courtship, Isabelle felt dazed. She knew enough not to depend on anything, but she couldn’t help feeling a thrill when another week passed, and then two months and then three, and here it was May and they were still together. Every time she saw Charlie, her heart jumped about her ribs, and she noticed, too, how his whole being seemed to light up when he saw her. He brought her little gifts: a perfect iris, a roll of film, and once a wind-up camera with two little legs. “This relationship is impossible,” he kept saying, but he smiled when he said it. He always kissed her nose, and lately, he called her every night before he went to sleep.

At first, they saw each other only when Sam was in school, grabbing lunch together, taking a walk. “We have to take this slow and careful. He’s been traumatized,” Charlie said. “I just want to make sure this is going to be something real before we tell Sam. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Of course,” Isabelle said, running the words
something real
through her mind.

They hung out with Sam more and more, but were careful not to act like anything but friends. At the movies, on the street, Sam was always in between them. When Charlie dropped Isabelle off at night, he waved at her, the way he might to the postman. Still,
she was so happy. What a thing, to feel good again! The next time she was in Lora’s office, Isabelle blurted that she wanted to stop therapy.

Lora raised a brow. “Why?”

“It’s a chance for me, now,” Isabelle said. “A way to feel good without the weight of all that examination and thinking. It just finally feels right to stop.”

“Don’t you think examination and thinking have value? Especially now, in a new relationship? Especially considering who this new relationship is with?”

Isabelle thought of Charlie, the way he looked, sleeping in her bed, one arm thrown over her waist. She thought of the expression on Lora’s face when she had told her, like a door slamming shut. She couldn’t help it—she sighed, and then she looked up at Lora. “I think sometimes you just have to go by how you feel.”

“Well, then,” Lora said, standing up. “You can always come back,” she said, but Isabelle, walking outside, thought only of Charlie.

O
NE DAY, THEY
were having lunch at the Mermaid diner by the beach. Isabelle, sitting in a booth across from Charlie, ordered fries and a coke. She reached out and took Charlie’s hand, and then she felt something, like a disturbance in the air. She turned around to see Luke with his girlfriend, who was hugely pregnant in a blue dress. Luke leaned down to nuzzle her neck, to kiss her mouth, and she laughed delightedly. Isabelle swallowed and held Charlie’s hand tighter. “What?” Charlie said.

“Hello, Luke,” Isabelle said, and then Luke looked over at her, and his whole body tensed. His girlfriend awkwardly put her hand on her belly.

“Isabelle,” Luke said. “Nice to see you,” and then he put his arm back around his girlfriend and guided her away and Isabelle felt suddenly as if she had been slapped.

“They’re unfriendly,” Charlie said.

“That’s my ex,” Isabelle said.

“Are you okay?”

Isabelle nodded. Seeing Luke had hurt, but not the way she thought it might have. She didn’t want to be the woman beside him, not anymore, and that was a relief. But seeing him so loose and easy with his girlfriend, so devoted, made her unsettled. Would she and Charlie ever be as bonded as that?

She traced her hand along Charlie’s arm and he took both her hands in his. “Don’t be upset. You’re here with me,” he told her. “And tonight, we’ll take Sam to the movies. Any one you want to see.” He studied her. “How come you and Luke never had kids? You’re such a natural with Sam.”

Isabelle pushed her fries away. “We couldn’t. I can’t have any.” She waited for Charlie to say what people always said: “You can adopt”; “It doesn’t matter.” Or once, most horribly, “Aren’t you too old to have kids anyway?” But instead Charlie reached up and cupped her face. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it somehow made her feel better.

When the waitress came by with a dessert menu, a tall blonde with a name tag that said Joey, she glanced at Isabelle as if she knew her. Isabelle pretended to be studying the forty varieties of ice cream they had listed on the menu. The accident had been a while ago. No one in the town talked about it anymore, and sometimes, if she was lucky, she even had whole days when she didn’t think about it at all herself. So why, when she saw the waitress giving her and Charlie the once-over, did Isabelle feel so guilty? Why did she feel as if she were committing a great, unpardonable crime that she needed to apologize for? She glided out of there as if the huge tip she insisted on leaving wasn’t a bribe to have the waitress on her side.

She thought of how her mother used up her whole life after Isabelle’s father died. She wouldn’t date, even though suitable men called her up with invitations so sweet they made Nora’s women friends swoon. Nora, though, couldn’t let go of that one great love.
Eventually, she was able to replace it with a love that was even greater, and to Isabelle’s shock and dismay, that love was for Jesus. If Luke had died, would it have been as simple for Isabelle to give him up? Death made you look differently at the people you loved. Their real selves weren’t there to contradict your beliefs about them. The dead became a whole other person.

“What movie should we see?” she asked Charlie, as they walked through the parking lot. Charlie opened his mouth and then he looked up and started waving at someone in the distance. “Fred!” he waved, and a man in a baseball cap turned around and waved back and started coming toward them.

She waited while Charlie talked animatedly to Fred about sheet rock and Italian tile, and the whole time Fred kept glancing at her and then at Charlie, and Isabelle felt unnerved. “I was so sorry to hear about April,” Fred said abruptly, and Isabelle felt Charlie fading beside her. She wanted to reach out and grab his hand, but he seemed miles away. “I always adored that woman,” Fred said quietly. “I was just nuts about her. What a shock. I still think I’m going to see her walking around the corner.”

“I’m Isabelle,” she blurted, and both men looked at her. She held out her hand until Fred shook it and she felt her face flushing.

Fred didn’t stay very long after that. He mentioned a restaurant he was redoing, and when he left, he shook Isabelle’s hand again. “Bye, you,” he said.

“Isabelle,” she called after him.

“Why didn’t you introduce me?” she asked Charlie after Fred had gone.

“It wasn’t a slight,” he said. “I was just caught up in seeing him.”

He walked beside her. On the corner, a man cupped a woman’s face in his hands and dotted her face with kisses. Across the street a girl whooped and leaped up into her boyfriend’s arms, nuzzling his neck.

Isabelle took Charlie’s hand again and held it.

O
NE DAY
, C
HARLIE
came home to find a note from Sam, asking if he could stay the night at his friend’s house. “Call me if it’s okay,” Sam’s note said. A sleepover, Sam’s first since the accident. Usually, because of his asthma, Sam didn’t get to go on overnights. The last time, Charlie had received a call at two in the morning because Sam was wheezing and the inhaler wasn’t helping. The parents were frantic and unsure what to do. “Should I call an ambulance?” the father asked, his voice tight with fear, and Charlie had grabbed for his keys. “Call,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”