The Woman in the Photograph

Mateo found the photograph while looking for paper.

It was tucked inside a book in the small library adjoining his bedroom. Valeria had brought the book down to show him the pictures of animals. A loose square of glossy paper slid from the pages and landed faceup between his knees.

Lucía stood in the garden wearing an enormous straw hat. Mateo, much smaller, sat in a wheelbarrow full of leaves.

The boy stopped turning the pages.

Valeria waited.

"Mommy," he said.

"Yes."

He touched the hat with his fingertip.

"Big."

"Very big. Do you remember it?"

He considered, then shook his head. She was glad he didn't feel obliged to give her another answer.

"We could ask your father about it."

Mateo looked toward the open door.

Alejandro was in the next room, on a call. He ended it when Valeria appeared, before she asked him to.

"He found a picture," she said. "Would you sit with us?"

He followed her in.

The moment he saw the photograph, his step faltered. Valeria had learned that grief could announce itself in very small movements. A hand that missed the chair. A breath held too long.

He sat on the rug.

"She stole that hat from me."

Mateo looked up.

"I bought it because I thought I could work in the garden without getting burned. Your mother told me it made me look like an unhappy mushroom. Then she wore it every weekend."

Valeria smiled.

"Was she right?"

"About the mushroom? Unfortunately."

Mateo studied the picture again.

"You were helping her collect leaves," Alejandro said. "Mostly you threw them back onto the lawn."

The boy pointed to the wheelbarrow.

"Ride."

"Yes. She pushed you around the garden. I said you were getting her clothes dirty. She told me to stop being boring."

He stopped there. His eyes shone, but he didn't turn away.

Mateo crawled closer and placed the photograph on his father's knee.

"Mommy gone."

Alejandro swallowed.

"Yes, son. She died."

Valeria rested her hands loosely in her lap. No one rushed to distract him with toys.

"Come back?"

The question was quiet enough to hurt.

Alejandro shook his head.

"No. She can't come back. I'm very sorry."

Mateo bent over the photograph. A few tears dropped onto the rug.

His father offered a hand without moving it closer.

After a while Mateo put his fingers into it.

They stayed like that until the boy asked for the truck. He played beside them, returning to touch the photograph between journeys across the carpet.

Later, when he was with Dr. Salcedo and Socorro in the garden room, Valeria helped Alejandro gather a few more pictures from a cupboard.

"You could put some downstairs," she said. "If you want to."

"I removed them because he screamed whenever he saw her."

"It must have been hard for you too."

"It was easier to tell myself I was doing it for him."

He held a picture of Lucía beside a half-painted ceramic bowl. Paint streaked one cheek.

"She was impatient," he said. "Always late. She would invite eight people to dinner and tell me about it at six. She once made my accountant cry because he talked to Socorro as though she were furniture."

Valeria laughed.

"I would have liked her."

Alejandro looked at her. "I think she would have liked you."

The simplicity of it unsettled her more than a compliment would have.

He set the photograph down.

"I need to ask you something difficult."

She went still.

"Are you afraid of me?"

Outside, she could hear Mateo moving the truck over the stone bench.

"Sometimes," she said.

Alejandro absorbed the answer without protesting.

"When you get angry, the whole house waits to find out who will suffer for it. I notice that."

His gaze dropped.

"And sometimes," she continued, "I see you trying so hard to choose the right words for your son that I forget to be afraid."

He looked up again.

She had not meant to confess that much.

"I won't ask you to forget what I am," he said.

"Good. I couldn't."

"But I want you to tell me when I frighten you."

"You won't enjoy it."

"I've noticed."

They smiled at the same time. Then neither was smiling quite enough to hide what had changed.

Alejandro reached for the picture she held. Their fingers met at its edge. He did not immediately take it away.

"I've been thinking about Sunday," he said.

"So have I."

His gaze moved to her mouth.

The room seemed suddenly smaller, the open doorway farther away. Valeria could have stepped back. Instead she set the photograph safely on the cupboard.

Alejandro came closer.

"Tell me to stop if I'm wrong."

"You're not wrong."

He touched her cheek first, giving her time to move. She caught his wrist, not to pull it away but because she wanted somewhere to put her trembling hand.

His mouth met hers gently.

She had expected him to kiss the way he entered rooms, certain that everything would make space for him. Instead he paused against her, waiting. She moved closer. His other hand settled at her waist.

The second kiss was less careful.

She could feel the tension in his arm, the restraint that made her suddenly aware of the strength behind it. She gripped his shirt and heard him draw a sharp breath.

Then a child's laugh came through the window.

They separated slowly.

Alejandro rested his forehead briefly against hers.

"That wasn't because you take care of him," he said.

"I know."

She hoped she knew.

When she went downstairs, her face still warm, Socorro stood in the passage carrying a small wooden frame.

"He asked to have this one by the garden door," she said. Lucía's enormous hat smiled up at them from the photograph.

Valeria took it.

Socorro did not let go immediately.

"Daniel didn't always take him to the studio," she whispered. "Sometimes he took him to the nursery bathroom. He said the child needed quiet."

Valeria's warmth vanished.

"When?"

"After the funeral. At first. Then again later."

"You saw that?"

Socorro nodded, eyes fixed on the frame between them.

"There is something I should have told his father a long time ago."