The Photographer - Mary Carter (best romance ebooks .txt) 📗

I sense ambivalence about her decision. I’m scared you might be hurt.”

“No one’s made any decision yet.” Fritz tossed the empty bag of chips into the trash under the sink and slammed the cabinet. “Not Lucia. Not us. And this conversation is bullshit.”

Apparently, Fritz and Amelia had little regard for Natalie’s presence in the room and how she might be processing their conversation. They prided themselves on being transparent with their child.

Natalie reached up high to pull a tall blue tumbler from one of the open shelves. She poured the last few ounces of milk into her glass. She looked exhausted.

“I have to invest in this baby,” Amelia said, her voice devoid of inflection. “I don’t have a choice. I have to invest in this baby.”

“No, Amelia,” Fritz said. “You will not force this down my throat.”

“Amelia,” I said, “you have options.”

I tried to envision an Amelia who was not overflowing with confidence.

Tears filled her eyes. It seemed to me that she was encouraging the tears. She didn’t have an answer for Fritz and, strategically, probably thought that crying was her best response. Not to suggest that she wasn’t impulsive and dramatic. She was. But, to achieve her end, I believed that Amelia could control her behavior. She and I were alike in that way.

I had never felt a strong urge to have a baby. The urge for me was to be a surrogate for Amelia and Fritz. The intimacy of that act. The importance. Very soon after the baby’s arrival, Amelia would return to working long hours. I could bond with the baby. I could potentially have a stronger bond with the child than Amelia would. And perhaps even more critical, my presence would be forever integrated into the Straubs’ lives.

It wasn’t the right time to introduce the subject to Amelia. I didn’t want to appear to be invested in any particular outcome. Amelia covered her face and wept, her body caving in. Something about her crumpled form made me know that I wouldn’t be able to repair the rift today. I needed to come at it from another angle.

“You all should get some rest.” I put my arms around Natalie and kissed her. Leaving the house took tremendous willpower. I told my legs to walk and they didn’t. An undefinable magnetic force held me in place.

Fritz moved toward the door, expecting me to follow. I forced my feet to lift and step in that direction.

“Call me if you need anything,” I said to Fritz. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to know how much I cared about him and his well-being.

“Thanks, Delta.” He leaned forward, as if he might embrace me, but then thought better of it and stepped back.

That night, I had a recurring dream. I was running toward a baby, and then I became the baby that I was running toward. Someone’s arms were wrapped around my body. I felt encompassed by warmth and love. I belonged to someone.

CHAPTER TEN

I woke up early with Lucia’s face etched in my mind. I pulled up the photos of her and clicked through all of them until I landed on the one. She was the Madonna. She was an Angel. A Child.

The photo needed more sex if it were to achieve its intended result. Making a pregnant woman look sexy is a subtle art. If I made any alterations, they would have to be indiscernible so that Lucia wouldn’t catch them. After some careful scrutiny, I developed a game plan: I darkened the shadows around her breasts. I took a sliver off her waist to make it slightly smaller than it actually was. I moved her hand so that it was closer to her crotch. I layered beads of moisture on her face. And I parted her lips a little bit. When Lucia’s boyfriend saw the photo, he would see a woman who was sexually aroused, notwithstanding her angelic innocence. He would imagine fucking her again. At the same time, he would see the mother of his child. And he would see his unborn child inside her. It would be difficult to resist all of that. Maybe impossible.

When my work was finished, I emailed Lucia the photo. Lucia, I had to send you this. Don’t forget what we discussed.

For the remainder of the day, I checked my email constantly. It was close to midnight when she wrote back. Wow. Thanks, Delta.

I felt certain she would send her boyfriend the photo. I had extreme confidence in my work. I knew how he would react to the picture of Lucia. He would want to claim her and her baby as his property. Right away, before someone else did.

The Straubs and I had established a routine; they assumed I would babysit Natalie every Friday. But given the nature of our last exchange, I could no longer take the routine for granted. I texted Amelia on Friday morning. She didn’t respond.

I tried to distract myself with errands and activities that day.

Friday evening I returned home and gave Eliza her dinner, and afterward we sat together on the sofa for several minutes, at which time I stroked the soft fur on her back and told her about my day. If she had been able to speak, she would have asked me not to leave her for so many hours. She would have asked me to bring her along next time. She would have told me that loneliness made her want to end her life—that the walls of the apartment we shared were inching imperceptibly toward each other, so that she feared she would one day be crushed.

I took a glass of wine to my office and spent two hours online researching adoption in New York State. I learned that a birth mother can decide whether an adoption is “open,” and if she stipulates, she can see the child as often as she chooses to. That kind of ongoing connection to Lucia would be an albatross around Amelia’s neck, especially if