Chapter Thirty-Two

OLIVIA PADDED DOWNSTAIRS in her robe, grateful to find Ben alone on the couch. She had faked sleep this morning, tracking the sound of Ellie through the house until she left for work. She was ashamed by the feint, by her distant behavior since the shower, but the image of Ellie’s face, blood pouring from her lips, had hovered over every moment this week. Blaming her breakdown on the flu was a flimsy excuse. Ellie hadn’t bought it for a second. But Olivia couldn’t explain the dream without explaining everything. Her lie heightened the tension between them, and Ellie’s concern had enveloped her until she could only breathe in the other woman’s absence.

“Hey, buddy. Enjoying the in-service day?”

He didn’t respond, mesmerized by the screen in front of him. The phone had been Sophia’s idea, after he’d become fascinated with selfies. He’d always hated being photographed, but one day he saw Sophia fiddling with a camera function on her new phone. She showed him how the camera “flipped” to face them, and he was hooked. A selfie could never be a surprise. Framing, timing, the decision to smile—it was all under his control. One tilting, listing, off-center selfie at time, he built a crude diary. I was here. This happened then.

It was only later they thought to incorporate it into his social life. When he floundered meeting someone, he could whip out his phone to break the ice. If he couldn’t put a face to a name, a simple scroll reminded him. Kids loved selfies. Most adults loved selfies, Olivia not included. Lately, though, he played games on it, and she monitored his time.

She settled next to him, leaning against his shoulder while he scrolled through his photos. An imaginary Sophia wagged a finger to say I told you so. “Can you start at the most recent one?”

Ben tapped a couple of times and started again.

“Who’s that?”

“Thomas.”

“Why does he use a wheelchair?”

He shrugged a shoulder, immune, as always, to most social details, and swiped through more selfies. She hadn’t registered how many new people he’d met, but in sheer number, Ellie dominated the screen. Every vibrant smile rebuked Olivia for closing herself off.

“This is my first one with Ellie,” Ben said.

“When was this?”

“TTC, the day group started.”

Ellie looked about the same, but the smile, while genuine, was smaller. Two eraser tips hovered over her dark curls. As Ben moved backward from Ellie’s first picture, the number of photos shrank—a few with Olivia, some with his cousins, his friend Jamal. Finally, he reached the picture they had looked at a thousand times. Ben and Sophia huddled close, his mother smiling big and bright, unaware this would be her last photo, that in a week she would be dead. A sob choked Olivia. The desire to pull her wife from the image, drag her into the present with them, overwhelmed her.

“Where are we?” Ben asked.

She clenched her fists. How long had it been since they’d talked about this picture? “At Indian Boundary Park, near the fort. The wind blew your popcorn off the picnic table, and all the pigeons flocked to eat it from the grass.”

“I remember! Mommy shared hers with me because I was sad.” Ben set the phone on the couch and stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m playing Minecraft with Jamal at nine.” He clomped up the stairs without a glance.

His casual departure was a fist to her chest. Ben always scrolled to the first selfie he’d taken with Sophia. Always. She grabbed his phone and tapped on that picture. A muted wisp of a boy stared back. She scrolled forward, a flip-book through time, watching Ben open up. His flat affect in the early years made Sophia’s smile seem manic by comparison, but right before the accident, he’d grown more comfortable. His eyes focused on the screen, and smiles crept in, even if they had the forced school-picture quality common to kids his age.

After the accident, his face closed again. Things shifted as she scrolled, small grins returning, a new classmate on the screen, but after the first picture with Ellie, his world exploded. More people, new friends, a goofy pose or two. She ended with a picture taken last night. His smile wasn’t huge, but it was real, and Ellie had snuck in a kiss to his cheek.

Olivia flipped from the recent picture to his last one with Sophia until the images blurred. The phone slipped from her grasp. She wanted to be happy for Ben, happy that he was happy with Ellie, with life, but the crushing sadness that Sophia wasn’t part of it suffocated her. Her head sank into her hands, and she shook with quiet sobs.