Pictures of You (31 page)

Charlie stood up, but when Isabelle stood up and started to follow him, he stopped and touched her shoulder. He cupped her chin, just for a moment, before he let her go again. “Please. I’ll call you when I know something,” he said.

All that day, Sam seemed to get worse. They gave him nebulizer treatments and started him on prednisone. By supper time, though, his breathing had calmed, and by late evening, he was sleeping, his small chest rising and falling. Charlie sat by his bed. He thought of April, the way some crackpot had told her that children with asthma are souls uncertain about staying here, and so she had climbed into Sam’s bed and whispered to him not to leave.

Charlie took Sam’s small hand in his. “Stay,” he told Sam, just as a nurse whisked into the room.

“Go home,” the nurse said.

“No, I should stay.”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning. Sam is out for the night and all that’s going to happen if you stay is that you’ll be a mess in the morning. Go get some sleep. You won’t be any good to your son if you get sick, too.”

The nurse shooed him, the way she might a dog. Charlie slowly got up and walked to his car.

Then he drove. The whole world seemed to have emptied out. The streets were dark and there were only a few cars on the road. Occasionally he saw someone walking. A man with his head bent low, crying. A couple with their arms slung about each other. The only people out were either miserable or in love.

Charlie thought about going home, sleeping on the couch because to get to his bedroom he’d have to walk past Sam’s empty room and he couldn’t bear that. He thought about Sam, so tiny in
that hospital bed, and then he thought about Isabelle and felt a tug of yearning.

He wanted to talk to her, to touch her face, to just be with her. He thought of the curve of her neck, and how she leaned forward as if she wanted to scoop up every word. And then he thought about how he had been so short with her at the hospital. He had seen the way her whole body flinched, and though he had ached to hold her, to tell her it was all right, it didn’t feel right.

He parked in front of her apartment and buzzed.

“Charlie?” Her voice was soft with sleep.

“Please …” He couldn’t get the words out. He rested his face against the door and then she buzzed him up. By the time he got to the top of her stairs, she was on the landing, walking toward him in her robe, then resting her head against his shoulder.

They lay spooned together on Isabelle’s bed, Charlie’s head against her shoulders, her heart beating against him. Then she turned to face him, taking his face in her hands. She kissed his nose and then each of his eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Try to sleep.”

When he woke, she was still beside him, still in his arms, her eyes open. “You slept,” she said. “I’m so glad. I watched you.”

“Then you didn’t sleep,” he said, kissing her.

They both got up slowly. He had forgotten how much he loved just seeing her move, the slow, easy way she lifted up her hair and knotted it, the way she tilted her head when she listened to him.

She was making them French toast, squeezing juice. He grabbed his pants from the living room floor and pulled out his cell to call the hospital.

“We tried to call you last night,” the doctor said. “Sam’s not doing well.”

His heart jammed. Had he been so involved with Isabelle that he hadn’t heard his phone from the other room? “I’ll be there right away.”

“It’s Sam,” he said to Isabelle, reaching for his clothes. Why did he leave the hospital? How could he have been so stupid? He didn’t have to listen to that nurse. He could have stayed. He could have been there when Sam got worse. His son didn’t have to be alone and scared. He could have been home to get the call. But instead he had gone to Isabelle.

He was lacing his shoes when he noticed that Isabelle had turned the burner off, that she was standing there, helpless.

“I know I can’t come with you,” she said, her voice sad.

“I’ll call you as soon as I can,” Charlie said, and then he grabbed his jacket and was gone.

A
LL THAT WEEK
, she waited for Charlie to call. Isabelle told herself he was at the hospital, he was busy with Sam, and when he was home, he must be exhausted. But sometimes, too, she wondered why she couldn’t go through this with him. Why did they have to deal with it as if they were on separate coasts of the country?

She thought about how April could have driven away without her son. Isabelle had driven away from a husband, too, but Luke had been cheating on her. He had fathered a child with another woman. She could understand leaving a husband like that, but a son? How could you leave your own child? She thought of April in her red dress, shrouded by fog, staring at Isabelle as if she knew what was coming, and then Isabelle leaped up and grabbed the phone, calling the hospital to ask about Sam.

“Discharged,” said a rushed voice, and Isabelle felt a shock of pain because she hadn’t known, because Charlie hadn’t thought to tell her.

She called Charlie. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been so overwhelmed that I haven’t had a second. It’s all I can do to take care of Sam,” he said. “He’s still not doing so hot, but at least he’s home.”

“I could help you.”

There was that funny silence again. “I want to see you,” he said.
“I know you’re worried, but every time I pick up the phone, I think about what it might do to Sam. I feel like I’m padding on this very thin layer of ice and I can’t even see the cracks.”

“We can protect him together.”

“I saw him being born,” Charlie said. His voice sounded far away, and she gripped the receiver tighter against her ear. “Some fathers don’t want to go into the delivery room, but I did. I saw him curled up, as tiny as a minute. I heard his first cry. When he came home, I used to sleep beside him, even though April was worried I’d smother him. I just loved staring at him. Having a child is, well, it’s just profound. Even as they grow, you just stop and look at them and you keep thinking in absolute wonderment, Where did you come from? How is it possible you’re here?” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I have to get Sam’s medicine. I’ll call you later,” he said, and then hung up.

Isabelle curled up in the sheets. She thought about Charlie tending his son, about the way he’d look at Sam with pure amazement that he existed, and then she thought about all the babies she would never have. All the names she had picked out. They were ghost babies.

And there was Sam.

And right now, she didn’t have either one.

All that week, Isabelle called to get reports about Sam, but it was always the same. Sam was wheezing. Or Sam was on a new medication or having to use an oxygen tank. And then he began to do better, to respond to the medication. “He’s turned a corner,” Charlie said finally, and she could hear the relief in his voice. “He’s back to normal.”

“Can I come by, then?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Charlie said. “Sam refuses to even talk about you right now.” He was quiet for a moment. “It was such a close call,” he finally said.

She wrapped her arms about her body, stung. “At least he’s better,” she said. “At least he’s going to be fine.”

S
HE WENT OUT
for a walk, and when she came home, there were two messages on her answering machine, Michelle and a wrong number. Nothing from work. What was she going to do if she couldn’t get some income? How would she live? She picked up the paper and scanned the help-wanteds. She knew she wasn’t exactly old, but she wasn’t twenty, either, and she didn’t have a college degree. The kinds of jobs she’d be competing for might not even want her—not that she truly, deeply wanted them herself. Photographing pots and pans for a department store, where the most creative thing she might do would be to put a plastic banana in a glass fruit bowl, or spread a robe across a well-made bed—that wasn’t for her. She scanned the ads. She could work at Sears, but it would be Beautiful Baby all over again, and they paid even less and didn’t offer full benefits, and how could she afford that?

Breathe, she told herself. But all she felt was panic. If she had to, who could she even stay with until she got on her feet? Michelle had the baby and a husband. Her other friends had boyfriends or studios so tiny there wouldn’t be room for even an extra house-plant. The summer people were starting to arrive, and even on one-room studios the prices were already skyrocketing. And she couldn’t ask Charlie. Not now.

Going through the mail didn’t help. Her electric bill was due, her rent. She still owed her dentist five hundred dollars for a chipped tooth he had repaired. And then a white envelope slid forward. She picked it up and suddenly felt sick, as if she needed to brace herself for another blow. The photography school. She had completely forgotten that she had applied. They had said on the brochure they’d let her know by summer, and now here it was.

Bad news comes in threes, Nora used to tell her, but she had said it after Isabelle’s father had died young, after Nora had lost her job at the library for repeatedly refusing to let kids take out books she felt were antireligious, and Isabelle had begun sneaking out to see Luke, a boy Nora considered pure poison. But now, here it was
again. One, two, three. Charlie, her job, and probably a polite little letter:
Dear Isabelle Stein, We’re sorry you weren’t good enough for us. We told you not to count on anything, didn’t we, but as usual, you refused to listen
.

She slid the letter on the table and then picked it up again and opened it. There it was in her hand. Her future.

I
SABELLE WAS PANTING
when she got to Charlie’s. She flung her bike on the grass and bounded up the stairs. She had to see Charlie, she wanted to see Sam. The world had suddenly opened up for her and she had to share it.

She buzzed and then the door opened and there was Charlie.

“Isabelle!” Charlie said. “What are you doing here?” He looked tired and shaggy, but the house was quiet. “Sam couldn’t sleep last night, but he’s finally napping,” he said. Charlie stepped outside onto the porch. “He’ll be out for a few hours,” he said. “It’s good school’s almost out. He won’t miss too much.” He touched Isabelle’s hair. “Stay a bit. Sit out on the porch with me.”

“I’m too excited to sit.” Hands shaking, she showed him the paper.

“What’s this?” He took the paper but his eyes stayed on her.

“I got in! They want me!” Isabelle cried. “They gave me a scholarship!”

He studied the paper. “This is for photography school?”

“You don’t understand—I never really graduated high school. I just have my crummy little GED, so most programs wouldn’t even want me. But this! This is the real thing, this is credentials. I could go someplace with this!”

“It says it’s in New York.” Charlie gave her a funny look. “You’re leaving us?”

Isabelle paced excitedly. “Charlie, remember you once said that you could imagine us being together for real?” She swallowed and then she decided to just say it, to just take the leap. “We could all leave. Go to New York together.”

“I have a house here. A business.”

“You could rent out your house. You could find work in New York or maybe you could come back here a few days a week. We could all see how we felt being really together.”

“Sam just got better! He just found out we’re a couple. I can’t spring it on him that we’re all moving to New York!”

“Nobody is springing anything! We all work this out together! And when Sam gets well, we can make real decisions about us.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said slowly. “Kids with asthma don’t get well. This is chronic. Anything could set him off. Sometimes I think that if I wasn’t so intent on moving on, Sam would have been safer.”

“Charlie, that’s crazy. You always put Sam first!”

“Is it crazy? He could have died.”

“But he’s all right now. And Sam knows about us now, we don’t have to sneak around.”

The way Charlie was looking at her made Isabelle step back. “You’re not saying, Isabelle, what a brilliant idea,” she said.

“Sam just told me that his mother wasn’t driving away with him, that she meant to go alone, and now you tell me you’re leaving? How can you do this to us?”

“I don’t want to leave you! I want you to come with me!”

“I don’t want you to leave! We need you here. I know it’s been rough, but things will get better. Can’t you at least wait until Sam is a little older? Can’t you give us more time? I can’t make a decision like this with all that’s going on now!”

“I don’t have more time! My money’s just about gone. Work is drying up at Beautiful Baby. I never intended to stay here for good.”

“But you have stayed.”

“Because of you. And Sam.” Isabelle dug her hands in her pockets. “Charlie, I don’t have anything else. I’ve been combing the want ads, making myself insane. This is my shot for a real future and I want you and Sam in it.”

Charlie rested his hands on the porch railing. “I built this porch
the summer before Sam was born. This is our
home
. This is what Sam knows. And we can’t live in New York. The pollution there is terrible for asthma. It’s hard enough when Sam goes to visit his grandparents there. He can’t be exposed to more of that.”

His hair was so long now, it fell like a wing. She wanted to cup his face. She wanted to kiss his beautiful mouth and then his throat. She swallowed. “If I stayed, Charlie, I’d have to give up this chance. I don’t know if I could get in again or if there might be other chances for me. Would you really want me to do that?”

His face turned tense and miserable.

“And if I stayed, if I did give it up, what would happen?” She pushed on, unable to stop herself. “Do you love me, Charlie?”

“How can you even ask such a question? Don’t you know how I feel?”

“I have to know there’s a place for me here. You keep asking me to wait, but for how long? I want more. I need more.”

As soon as she said it, she knew she had made a mistake. Charlie looked at her as if she had just struck him, and she felt suddenly hot and shamed.

“You don’t understand,” Charlie said. “Last night, I mentioned your name and Sam had an asthma attack. If I tell him you and I are serious—or if I tell him you’re leaving—I don’t know what could happen. How can I promise you anything? I just have to take things moment by moment right now. Please—we need you here. I need you.”