Pictures of Acadia

We are most irresponsible when we are most in love, and we are often in love. I swiped a pack of 4x6 prints Kelly had made the week before, that the Schmidts had failed to pick up. Instead of the garbage, they found their way into my bag, then into my car, then onto the kitchen table, where the crumbs of the last days of food had been quickly swept onto the floor. Once Ryan arrives home, we will spread them out and inspect them. Turn the views into stories and the people into characters, lean our heads against each other’s shoulders, laugh, be like children are.

He comes home like he always does: tired and losing the battle against gravity. His shoulders slump and the middle of his back pushes outward. His eyes trace the floor until he sees me. Picking me up and spinning me around, he asks how my day was. I point to the box. He runs upstairs to change. We can be like kids, together.

I lay them out on the table. They are taken with an older phone or digital camera. A younger family on a road trip. A sign that says Acadia. The landscape is breathtaking and simple all at the same time, and I am struck by it. If we ever leave this place we should go to Acadia. Maybe we should pack our things now and make a break for it. No two-weeks notices. Everyone would be happy we are gone. Indifferent, at least. In the woods, we could be married without ever getting married. In the woods, we can be anything. Drugstore photodesk employees are infinitely replaceable, office janitors easy enough to find. We could disappear, together.

He comes downstairs and is effortlessly beautiful in sweatpants and a tee shirt. He is effortlessly beautiful in every way. He has this gleam in his eyes. He makes me so excited that I want to burn the whole world down. I am his. 

— This family, he says. What do you think they do for work? 

We study their faces. The man has a soft face and dull eyes. In most of the photos we have out, he is smiling, but in some he looks distant and unapproachable.

— Finance, I say. The weird kind of finance that can’t be explained unless you are there. Like your dad does.

He puts his thumb next to the woman’s face, so that it looks slightly lopsided. He says she looks pretty but she looks nothing like me. I search her eyes and see nothing. 

— A lawyer, he says.

— What kind? 

He thinks. 

— Environmental, he says.

I work at a drugstore photodesk. I spend all day printing picture after picture on chemical-coated paper. I look down at my hands and push into him.

— They must be rich, I say.

He nods.

— Bidets in their four bathrooms, undoubtedly.

More photographs. Their son is a lovely-looking boy. He has a birthmark on the left side of his face that is only visible when his mother, who must be quite strong, holds him against her waist. She is left-handed like me.

Now they are hiking. The boy has the camera and there are pictures of flowers and sky and the parents, who smile and pose for him as he wishes. Ryan and I are silent. Some darkness has fallen over him. Some darkness has made his body rigid, and his eyes study each photograph carefully before setting them against the table. He is several photographs ahead of me. He is rummaging through them. Focused.

— What’s wrong? I ask.

— Nothing.

— Something’s wrong.

He’s got a stack of them now, and he’s laying them down quickly. The same hike. Everyone is wearing the same thing, but the mother has the camera, and the child is scowling. The child is on the father’s back, but he is scowling. His purple shirt is cotton. He is sweating. His dad is having a bad time on the hike but is smiling all the same. A photograph with a thumb in front of it and not much else.

— What is wrong?

— Where did you find these?

— They weren’t picked up. Sale voided. They were going to get thrown away, but I swiped them. Why?

Then, there is a photo at the edge of a ledge. He must have seen it peaking out. It is dizzying to see. The ledge is jagged and rocky, bushes obscuring the purple dot on the ground. Or black dot, or some dot all the way down at the bottom framed at the center of the image. 

— What is that?

— I don’t know, he says. I don’t know at all. Is that the kid?

We flip through them quickly. The couple at the peak. The couple hiking down. The sky. The flowers. The couple at the base pointing at the sky. In the car. The couple getting dinner at some greasy spoon diner. The couple comparing sunburns. 

— Where’s the kid? He asks.

— I don’t know.

— Where’s the kid?

— In the background or something, I’m sure.

— What the fuck is that?

He’s scrambling now, digging for the photograph of the thing at the bottom at the ledge. He points at the picture and repeats himself.

— What the hell is that, Lily?

I wrap my arms around him, and feel his heart beating fast. I squeeze. He looks down at me, into my eyes. He is so beautiful.

— There’s something wrong.

— Let’s table it, I say. Let’s put them back in the box. We can just seal it back up and forget that it ever happened. We can still make it a good night. 

— Forget it? All that?

— This was supposed to be fun. Us having fun. That’s what it is. 

— No, he says. No, not right now. This is weird. This is not right at all.

— Never happened, I say. Why would they print out something like that? Risk all that? Why would they want to keep it? It’s a joke. A big joke they’re playing. People do this all the time.

He steps back, but I don’t let go, I stumble forward and into him.

— Lily, that’s weird, he says. So weird. It’s important we do something about this. Listen, that’s not something people do for a joke. What do you do about this when it happens at work?

— It doesn’t. It doesn’t happen and it’s not happening now. How could that be possible, that they would go and print it out?

I push him over towards the couch, and he sits down next to me. I tell him we can seal it back up. That it never happened. That nothing changes because of anything. Yes, weird things happen but—listen—it doesn’t change that these photos are retroactive. If anything happened—if—exposing the fact that I swiped some pictures does nothing for anyone. 

— What would you do if it was our kid?

— Our kid?

— Yes.

Now is not the time. I look into his beautiful face. Now is not the time. He is so beautiful when he is worried. His brows knit together like that. His face flushed. He is such a gentle, careful man. He could never work in finance. He is too beautiful. I love him. I love him when we are irresponsible. I love him.

— Do you see that? I ask. For us?

— See what? 

— I don’t know. That?

— Yes, he says. I see that with you. I see that with no one else but you. I love you.

I nod. He shakes his head, suddenly frantic.

— What do you mean? He asks. What do you mean?

— I don’t know. We can talk about this later. Are you sure there is no kid in the photo? In any of them? Have you really looked?

— Stop, he says. Please. Are you kidding me?

— No. I do love you. More than I’ve loved anyone, I love you.

He is up and pacing back and forth. He sweeps the photographs onto the floor and they flutter down like strange confetti. 

— We were getting married, he says. Getting married.

— I love you, I say.

He is still beautiful now. Still so beautiful, even when he is so angry. He drops to his knees and begins to dig. He comes up with a handful and silently, shakily, drops them into my lap. He stares at me. When I look down, I see a couple. They are smiling. They are not beautiful like us. I want to crawl out of my skin. They are not like me. I want to run away and never come back. There they are. There we are. He is so incredibly beautiful. He is so incredibly perfect. I am most irresponsible when I am most in love. It is just us. It is just them.

— Do something, he says. 

The vast expanse of Acadia is big enough to get lost in. I am sure people have. We could quit our jobs and run away. We could never have a child. We could never stop moving. He is so beautiful. I love him. I am deep in thought about us deep in Acadia. I reach out and grab his hands. I want to get away from this. I thought he would come with me. I thought so.

— Say something, he says. Please.

Even upset, he is beautiful. Even with this darkness over him and these pictures in my lap. Even his slouching. This distance that is growing between us, and he is still beautiful. I want to put my hands on his cheeks and hold his face up against mine and tell him everything is going to be okay, darling, everything is going to be okay. We can leave this place and these expectations. His expectations. We can leave now and never look back. 

— Please.