The Family Photo I Would Not Fix

What I actually did

That afternoon Sharon had made one comment too many. I do not even fully remember the exact words, which tells you something, because for four days I had been memorizing every one. It was at the late lunch, something about how I should “watch it at dinner” if I wanted to “look decent in the picture,” said with a little laugh, and Brett laughed, and Dylan looked down at his plate, and I felt the old smile start to climb up my face on its own, the reflex, the labor.

And I just let it not come.

I did not glare. I did not say anything sharp. I just did not perform the smile. I let a plain, quiet, unbothered look sit on my face instead, and I looked at her for one second longer than was comfortable, and then I went on eating. And I watched her not quite know what to do with that, because the machine needs the target to smile, the smile is how everyone agrees it was a joke, and I had stopped feeding the machine.

Then, that evening, as the light started to go gold and Kayla started organizing the coordinating shirts and Sharon started her happy anxious bustling about the picture, I did the only thing I did on purpose the entire week.

I went to Dylan, quietly, away from the others, and I said, “I’m not going to be in the photo tonight.”

He looked at me like I had spoken a foreign language. “What? Why?”

“Because I’ve been the joke at this beach for four days,” I said. I did not raise my voice. I have never raised my voice at Dylan, not that week, not ever, and I did not start then. “Your mother has told me I ate too much, that I stopped trying, that your eye is going to wander, in front of everyone, every day. And you looked at your plate. Every time. So I’m going to sit this one out. I’m not going to stand on a beach and smile for a picture that’s supposed to be about family, next to a woman who’s spent the week telling me I’m not good enough to be in it.”

He said, “It’s the picture, though. It’s Mom’s picture. It’s the first one with Miles.”

“I know,” I said. And here is where the quiet fact did its quiet work, and I did not have to raise my voice at all. “And Miles won’t go to anyone but me. You know that. So if I’m not in it, he’s not in it. I’m not doing that on purpose to hurt her, Dylan. It’s just true. I’m his mother and he goes where I go. If your family wants me in the picture, then the comments about my body stop. That’s all. That’s the only thing I want. But I’m not going to be forced to smile through it. Not anymore.”

And I took Miles, who was already fussing at the strange gold light, and I went and sat on the porch swing on the deck, up above the beach, in the shade, and I nursed him, and I watched.

I did not hide him. I want to be clear. I did not spirit the baby away. I sat in plain sight on the deck with my son, a mother feeding her child at the end of the day, the most ordinary thing in the world. I just did not come down to the sand.