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

“The date is fast approaching.” I hadn’t expected that I’d ever see Lucia in person again. The sight of her was hard to take.

Amelia motioned us down the hall and to the dining table. I sat down across from Lucia.

“What a lovely sunset.” I chose to concentrate on the brilliant pink sky through the glass doors until I got my bearings.

Amelia poured wine for me and sparkling water for Lucia. Over the last few months, I’d developed a distaste for inferior wine. Cheap wine made me view myself in a certain light, as belonging to a certain socioeconomic class. So I was astonished, frankly, when I saw Amelia with an eight-dollar bottle of wine in her hand. Perhaps someone had given her the bottle and she hadn’t paid attention to the label.

Amelia sat down next to me and across from Lucia. “Lucia and I … we’re discussing some of the options she has,” Amelia said in a careful and controlled tone of voice. “We’ve had a few conversations over the past week, just talking it all through.”

I patted Itzhak, who had sidled up next to me. The dog provided me with a welcome point of focus.

“But I’ve decided already.… I’m not still deciding,” Lucia said. “Ron wants to be with me and the baby. I came here because I thought I should apologize, because I’m sorry I said yes before.” Lucia clearly felt guilty. She was rambling, but she wasn’t confused.

I had that same sensation of lightness and buoyancy again. Two pictures of Ron alternated in my brain: 1.) a shifty slacker who operated just barely inside the law; 2.) an ambitious and outwardly respectable guy who didn’t want to get strapped with a wife and baby, both of whom would limit his future prospects.

No matter his profile, my photograph of Lucia had succeeded in exerting power over him.

“I’m very sorry.” Lucia looked down at the ground.

Amelia’s catlike movements and sounds came to the fore when she was on edge. She was the opposite of approachable. If I were able to see inside her mouth, I was sure I would have seen her biting her tongue so hard that she was drawing blood.

I noticed a silver ring on Lucia’s right middle finger that I hadn’t seen before. Perhaps it was a promise ring. She was too young to know how meaningless a promise ring was.

“He loves me. Ron knows what he wants.” Lucia appeared to feel less vulnerable than the last time I saw her. Obviously, she believed that she had an ally in Ron. And maybe she did.

“Sweetheart.” Amelia smiled broadly, showing her teeth. The smile was an attempt at friendliness but veered toward a grimace. She took a large sip of her wine. “I believe he’s in love with you. Who wouldn’t be? But it’s a lot of pressure to put on your relationship. Financial and emotional pressure.” She studied Lucia’s face, as if looking for agreement. I noticed Lucia’s jaw tighten. Amelia smoothed her blouse down, then meticulously rolled up her sleeves. “What do you think, Delta?” she said amiably. There was a right answer and a wrong answer to the question.

“I think that you and Ron should be together,” I said to Lucia.

Amelia’s body stiffened.

“But you’re very young to have a baby,” I said.

“Ron wants to be a father,” Lucia said.

“In a few years, of course,” Amelia said calmly, “when you’ve finished school and have a job. There’s time for everything.” She spoke as if she had some real authority over the girl, as if Lucia were obliged to follow her directions. Amelia was so accustomed to her demands being acceded. She considered herself wiser than everyone in the room and thought others ought to be grateful for her superior opinion. I wondered if her demeanor was a strategy, developed in order to get her own way. In this case, the strategy looked to be backfiring.

“Ron loves our baby.” Lucia put her hand on her belly. “This baby.” I saw the almost imperceptible smile on Lucia’s face as she touched the baby and I knew that Amelia’s chances had diminished. Lucia had allowed herself to fall in love with her child. Even if Ron didn’t stick around, the adoption prospects didn’t look strong for Amelia.

I doubted that Amelia saw what I did. Maybe she chose not to. She was focused on Lucia’s words. “Sweetheart, he disappeared for six months.” She continued to speak in a calm, slow, and deliberate voice, but I could tell that it was an effort to do so.

“He was struggling,” Lucia said.

“Drugs?” Amelia licked her lips twice.

Lucia shrugged.

“Addiction issues?”

Lucia moved her head very slightly. I wasn’t positive if she was nodding or just looking down.

Here Amelia’s careful tone and manner started to disintegrate. “That shit never goes away.” It was as if she’d run out of the lubricating oil she’d been applying to her voice and, all of a sudden, we could hear its true, shrill quality.

Lucia visibly flinched, like she’d been cut.

“You need to know the truth,” Amelia continued. “Before the baby turns one, Ron will take off, best-case scenario. Worst, he’ll stay and slap you around when he’s had a few too many.”

I needed to eliminate Lucia, but Amelia was doing a better job alienating her than I’d ever be able to on my own. With Amelia’s last speech, Lucia turned off. It was clear to me she’d made up her mind and there was no going back.

“You don’t know him.” Lucia’s distress surrounded her like a dense fog. She was unreachable.

“I know enough,” Amelia said.

“I need to leave.” Lucia pushed her chair back and stood up, using the table to support her weight.

Amelia froze for an instant. It was as if she were drunk and someone had thrown a glass of ice water in her face. She rushed around to the opposite side of the table. “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that.” She tried to push Lucia back down into the chair.

“I understand you.”