Chapter 15: Where I Sat For The Last Picture
The reception was winding down when Emily found me.
It was past eight. The string quartet had packed up and the catering staff were stacking chairs along the side wall of the fellowship hall. Most of our relatives had gone. Dad was asleep in a folding chair near the dessert table with his tie loosened, and Mom was talking in a low voice with one of Margaret's sisters by the coffee service. Daniel's cousins were carrying out the remaining centerpieces in plastic bins.
I was at the table by the window, my hands around a glass of water I hadn't drunk. My chair was angled so I could watch the parking lot lights come on. My shoulders ached from holding myself upright all day.
Emily came over without her veil. She'd taken off the tiara too, and her hair was a little flat where it had been. She still had on the lace gown, but she'd kicked off the heels somewhere and was barefoot on the carpet. She knelt down next to my chair so we were eye level. I could see she had been crying again, but not in the frantic way from the aisle.
"Claire," she said, and she had to clear her throat. "Can I ask you for one more picture? The last one. Before they lock the sanctuary."
I waited.
She swallowed. "I want you front and center. Not in the back. I want me kneeling right next to your chair, and Daniel and Margaret standing behind us. With the stained glass behind us. The photographer said he'll wait if we go now."
The photographer was leaning in the doorway, his camera hanging from his strap. He gave me a small nod when I looked at him. He didn't lift the camera.
I looked at Emily. Her hands were in her lap. She wasn't reaching for me yet.
"Why that picture?" I asked.
"Because it's the truth," she said. "And because I ruined every other picture today trying to make it perfect. I want one that isn't ruined."
Margaret and Daniel came over then. Margaret had taken off her suit jacket and had it over her arm. Daniel had his bow tie untied around his collar. They stood a little behind Emily, not crowding us.
I needed a second. I took a breath and felt the familiar pull on the scar tissue along my left shoulder.
"I'll do it," I said. "But I need to say something first. For after today."
Emily nodded quickly. "Anything."
"First, no more hiding," I said. My voice was steady. I kept it low because I didn't want the few people left to overhear us as a performance. "Not in pictures, not at family dinners, not when your friends come over. If you're embarrassed about my chair or my scars, you tell me in private and we deal with it, but you don't move me to the back."
"I won't," she said. "I promise I won't."
"Second," I said, "I want us to have dinner. Just us. Once every three months. No parents, no boyfriends or husbands. Just sisters. And we go to therapy together. One session before the next dinner. I already called a place in town, they take my insurance. They have access."
Emily's eyes filled up again, but she didn't look away. "Yes. I want that."
Daniel crouched down on my other side. "I'll make sure it happens," he said. "I'll drive her. I'll put it on our calendar the way we put everything else."
Margaret stepped forward. She didn't kneel. She put her hand lightly on the back of my chair, not on me.
"Claire, I'd like to offer something," she said. Her voice was careful. "I've wanted to for a while. Your apartment on Elm — Daniel told me about the bathroom doorway and the kitchen counter you can't reach. I'd like to pay to have it modified. Properly. A contractor who knows accessible work. Not as a payoff. As an atonement. You saved your sister. My family hid my brother. I can't fix that, but I can fix a doorway."
I thought about my apartment. The lip on the shower I had to bump over every morning, the cabinets I couldn't open without asking someone. I'd been saving for a year and had almost enough for just the shower.
"I can't let you buy forgiveness," I said.
"It's not forgiveness," Margaret said. "It's accountability. You'd get three bids, you'd choose the contractor, I'd write the check to them directly. And you can say no."
I looked at her earrings catching the overhead light, at the tired lines around her eyes. She wasn't stern now. She was just older.
"Okay," I said after a pause. "Three bids. I choose. And we put it in writing."
"Of course," she said, and her hand tightened briefly on my chair.
Emily let out a breath she had been holding. "So you'll do the picture?"
"I'll do the picture," I said.
The sanctuary was cool when we went back in. Someone had turned off most of the lights, leaving just the sconces and the last of the daylight through the arched stained-glass windows. It threw color across the wooden pews — blues and reds pooling on the white ends where the bouquets had been. The air still smelled faintly like flowers and candle wax.
The photographer didn't pose us much. He just said, "Right here is perfect," and pointed to the center aisle where everything had stopped that morning.
He helped me turn my chair so the wheel locks faced the camera and the stained glass was directly behind us. Emily knelt on the hard floor beside me without a cushion, her white skirt fanned out and touching my front wheel. She put her hand over mine on the armrest, not covering it, just resting there. Daniel stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders, light enough that I could shrug him off if I wanted. Margaret stood behind Emily, one hand on Emily's shoulder.
"Look at me when you're ready," the photographer said softly.
I felt everyone's breathing. Emily's knee was shaking a little from kneeling. Daniel's thumb brushed my collar once and then was still.
I looked at the lens. I didn't try to hide my scars or angle my chair. The light from the window was on my face.
The shutter clicked three times. He didn't say "smile." He just said, "Thank you."
We stayed like that for another second after he lowered the camera. Then Emily stood up slowly, wincing where her knees had gone numb.
In the parking lot, the air had gone cold. My van was parked under the streetlight where Daniel had moved it that afternoon so I wouldn't have to cross the gravel. Margaret walked with me while Emily and Daniel said goodnight to the pastor at the side door.
"I meant what I said," Margaret said as we reached the van. She pressed a folded piece of paper into my hand. It was her email address and her cell, written in neat block letters. "Send me the contractor names when you have them."
"I will," I said.
She hesitated. "You handled yourself today with more grace than most people could."
"I didn't feel graceful," I said.
"Grace isn't how it feels," she said. She squeezed my hand once and stepped back.
Emily came running over then, still barefoot, carrying her shoes in one hand. She didn't try to hug me from behind the chair the way people sometimes do. She came around to the front and bent down.
"Quarterly dinners," she said. "I'll text you Monday about the therapist."
"Text me Sunday," I said. "Before you get busy."
She laughed, a little wet. "Sunday. I will."
She kissed my cheek. Daniel opened the van door and lowered the ramp the way he'd learned to do it smoothly, without making a production of it. I rolled up on my own. No one pushed me.
May you like
When I turned the key, the headlights came on and lit the church's stone steps where we'd taken the last picture. Emily stood there with Daniel's jacket around her shoulders over her wedding dress, and Margaret stood a step below them with her arms crossed against the cold. Emily lifted her hand and waved.
I waved back. Then I backed out slowly and turned toward the highway, the photographer's memory card in its case on my passenger seat and Margaret's paper in my cup holder and Sunday already circled in my head. Nothing was fixed forever. But everything was visible now, and honored, and with a clear next step. I drove home under the parking lot lights and didn't look in the rearview once to see if I was ruining anyone's view.
