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“I’m still stuffed with Alice’s biscuits and gravy.”
“Coffee?” I ask.
He nods.
“And two coffees please, Joe,” I bellow.
Joe gives us a thumbs-up.
Isaac’s assessing eyes glide across the café, decorated with paper snowflakes that hang from the ceiling by clear fishing lines. Snowmen and women line the counter. A Fraser fir—with gorgeous hand-painted wooden cardinals, robins, woodpeckers, snow buntings, and tufted titmouse dangling from its branches—sits by the door. It’s wrapped with snowball garland and tossed with iridescent white tinsel.
He reaches for the camera bag at his side and looks at me. “Do you mind?”
I shake my head. “Not at all.”
He stands to his feet, pulls the camera from its containment, and begins to walk around the room.
He focuses on Joe through the window into the kitchen as he flips pancakes, then moves to a couple sitting on the stools by the counter, enjoying their breakfast.
He snaps the tree as Joe makes it to our table with a pot of coffee and fills our cups. I take hold of the sugar bowl on the table, add two cubes to my cup, followed by a glug of cream from the small pitcher, and stir.
Isaac turns his lens to me as I close my eyes, blow the surface, and take the first sip.
When I open my eyes, his camera is still focused on me as he walks a circle around our booth.
I grin at him. Turn my head to look out the window. Pull my hair to the side to cover my face. But no matter how I attempt to hide, he just continues to shoot.
Joe returns with a plate and leans over and takes a look at Isaac’s screen.
He smiles and nods as he sets the food in front of me.
“Stunning,” he quips on a wink.
I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks.
I glance up at Isaac. “Sit, please,” I demand.
He puts the camera away and parks himself across from me.
“So, you and Cobie’s mom are divorced?” I ask, attempting to make small talk as I dig into my meal.
“We are. Have been for five years now,” he says.
“She seems well adjusted,” I observe.
He leans back against the red faux leather bench and sighs. “That’s all Lonnie. She’s a great mother,” he praises.
“But not a great wife?” I regret the words as soon as they leave my tongue.
“It wasn’t that. We met at the University of Texas. We married young, right out of college. I had my fine arts degree, and she had a nursing degree. We had so many plans. I wanted to see the world, and she wanted a family. We compromised and decided that she’d take a position as a travel nurse for five years and I’d pick up photography gigs wherever her job took us. We were excited, both of us, and it worked for about a year. Then, one surprise pregnancy later, and we were back in Texas, living in her parents’ basement.”
“And you weren’t happy about that?” I guess.
His forehead creases as he chooses his words.
“I was happy about the baby, but not the timing exactly. I had just started booking real jobs and wanted to get my foothold in the industry, save some money, buy a house, and then fill it with babies. Having to stay with the in-laws while Lonnie worked nights in the ER and I took jobs shooting middle school pictures was not the way I wanted to start our family.”
“You made God laugh,” I muse.
