I wake staring at the ceiling, knowing I’ll stay home again today. The man can call me here, of course, but he can’treachme. Touch me. I’ll be safe behind our bolted doors, and I can hang up the telephone—just as Tom directed. If I have to call Tom at work, he’ll rush home. I hate feeling this trapped and controlled, but I tell myself I’ll strike out to take pictures very soon. Maybe even tomorrow. I hang my hope ontomorrow, and the idea of it shines in my mind. I cling to it:I’ll go out tomorrow. Today I’ll be cautious, and being cautious will somehow earn me the right to be less cautious, to be reckless, even,tomorrow.
“I could stay home today,” Tom offers, shrugging as he lingers by the door. “Call in sick.”
“I’m fine, Tom, really. I’ll be fine. Just a little tired is all.”
“What if the guy calls?”
“He didn’t call yesterday.”
“Judy.”
“If he calls, I’ll hang up, and then I’ll call you at work right away. Now go, you’ll be late.” I give him a quick kiss goodbye and send him out the door—not before scanning the street for the man’s blue car. No sign of it anywhere.
The door pops back open before I can lock it.
“And lock the door,” he adds, forgetting for a moment that the threat—as he perceives it—comes frominsidethe house. I lock thedoor and sigh when I hear his car pull out of the drive, as if Tom himself were the danger.
I look around the silent, empty house. Wondering what to do first. Dust and vacuum the living room? I’ve dressed in my cleaning clothes to do just that, but standing here now, the cleaning spirit leaves me. The row of crystal figurines I’ve slowly collected catches my eye, shining in the morning light: the sparrow, the owl, the squirrel, the field mouse, and the little dog like Rosie. They throw spots of light around the walls, and that seals it: I fetch my camera, telling myself I’ll start cleaning the moment I’m done.
I’m surprised by how much I like the challenge of turning our everyday objects and rooms into pictures—goodpictures. After the crystal figurines, I move on to Tom’s and my coats hanging like emptied skins in the hall closet. Then I head deeper into the house. As the sunlight shifts from morning to afternoon, our rooms become shadowed, strange terrain. I capture the inner dark of the bedroom closet, its door cracked; the solemnity of our queen-sized bed, which offers the slight imprints of our separate bodies; and the steps leading up to the attic, seemingly dissolving as they rise into darkness.
I pause in the bathroom, glancing in the mirror. I’ve avoided every other mirror: the one over our living room mantel, another in our dining room. But this one is unavoidable; I start to back out, but I’m held by my own image, my camera poised in midair.
I can stand in such a way that my cosmetic mirror, attached beside the main mirror and angled toward it, reflects me back to myself ad infinitum. The hairs along my arms stand up the way they do whenever I find an exciting composition, and I can almost hear Paul call itelectric and original.
But I can’t take it. I stand forever with the camera in hand, looking in the mirror and longing to preserve the image, but terrified at what might be behind me when I print the film: the man reflected ad infinitum, too.
I set the camera down on the back of the toilet and wash my face incool water at the sink. When I look up, there is only one of me. No figure looms behind me. I feel great relief and a vast disappointment—relieved to be safe, bereft to give up on such a striking picture. I move to pick up my camera but stop myself before touching it. I tell myself I’ll get it later, when I’m done with my cleaning. I glance at the camera once more, sitting in such an odd place, before I turnaway.
25.
The phone shrills during dinner, making me jump. It’s only then that I realize what silence I’ve lived with all day. Not a sound, except for the white noise of vacuuming the carpet, or the watery sound of mopping the kitchen floor. The phone never rang; no one knocked; not one person disturbed my solitude—though it felt more like abject loneliness by the end of the day. When Tom returned home, I surprised him with a fierce embrace. But Tom’s entrance was a welcome interruption; the telephone’s ring is not. It sullies my house—my spotless rooms and straightened pillows. I feel sullied myself, though I’m showered and dressed for dinner.
Tom gives me a steady look and pushes his chair back from the table. I sit unmoving, my fork frozen in air, as I listen to Tom in the kitchen.
“Hello, Stanley residence.”
“Hello? Who is this?” I swallow. Will the man just breathe and laugh, or will he say vile things? Will he tell Tom the full truth of how my thighs were scarred? Will he tell him I’m…
Tom returns. He gives me a wobbly smile.
“Wrong number. They wanted someone named Gunderson.” Relief floods through me, but it’s temporary. There will be another call sometime, probably soon. Or the man will come to our door instead. He’llask for Tom and I’ll stand behind him, absorbing all the terrible words. Digesting them. Becoming them—right in the presence of my husband.
I try to eat my food, but when I’ve chewed and chewed, I find I can’t swallow.If I swallow it, I’ll become those things, won’t I?I push the chewed meat into my napkin when Tom turns his worried eyes away from me for a moment, and then I set my fork down carefully.
26.
Paul is quieter than usual tonight, thumbing through my pictures. Probably disappointed by my light and dark interiors, my mundane objects and lifeless scenes. I watch him pause at certain ones and wonder what they are. I stand there, fidgeting like a schoolgirl—like one of his fangirls.
Finally, he looks up.
“These are wonderful, Judith. And unexpected.” He hands them back to me, which sinks my rising spirits, but then he looks the way he always does after seeing my photographs: bright-eyed and alive.
“I expected to see more self-portraits—in mirrors, in a toaster oven, that sort of thing?” I think of the stunning photograph I failed to take in the bathroom mirror and freeze. How can I explain why I spent the day inside, surrounded by reflective surfaces, without taking a single self-portrait? But Paul was commenting more than questioning. I’m relieved when he goes on.
“But I didn’t actually miss them. I mean, Ididmiss them, I love your self-portraits, but…it’s astonishing to me how much emotion you convey inallof your photographs, even these, of objects and interiors. I can stillfeelthem, you know? Feel the weight of the house and the life of these things, and your life inside all of it. It’s really something.” He’s staring off into the dim classroom as he speaks. Even though he’s speaking aboutmy life, he doesn’t need me here, I realize; he’scommuning so deeply with my pictures that I could be…a desk, or the fine point of his sharpened pencil, or nothing at all.
“Thank you, Paul,” I say, louder than usual, trying to remind him that I’m here, that I exist. “I-I purposely avoided taking self-portraits. I think I might rely on them too much.”
