Chapter 7 - The Missing Place
The photographer called Emmett on Thursday.
He asked whether I could come over before he opened the preview gallery.
“I don’t want to look at them alone.”
Margot was at preschool.
We sat at his dining table with a laptop between us.
For the first few minutes, there were flowers, shoes, rings, and smiling people.
Then the family photographs appeared.
Claire with her parents.
Emmett with his brother.
The newlyweds with both sets of relatives who had attended.
No Margot.
In one wide image, I could see her at the far edge of the lawn, half hidden behind my chair.
She was holding the little basket she had carried during the ceremony.
Her father stood twelve feet away.
Emmett put his hand over his mouth.
“I waved her over.”
“I remember.”
“She said no.”
“She’d already been told no by somebody else.”
He enlarged the picture.
I wished he wouldn’t.
I understood why he did.
The photographer had included a copy of the requested shot list to explain the order.
Beside the section marked family portraits was a note Claire had added the week before.
Couple and adults first. Child photos only if time allows.
Emmett read it twice.
“She told me she’d handle the details.”
“A note isn’t the whole story,” I said.
“But it fits what happened.”
He nodded without looking at me.
Then he called the photographer and asked whether there were any photographs of him and Margot together.
We waited while she checked.
There was one from before the ceremony.
He was fastening the buckle on his daughter’s shoe.
Neither of them was looking at the camera.
“Send that one,” he said.
After the call, he closed the laptop.
“I keep trying to find the moment I should’ve noticed.”
“Finding it won’t change Saturday.”
“I know.”
“It might change Friday.”
He looked up.
“What’s Friday?”
“Whatever she asks you for tomorrow.”
That afternoon, he brought Margot home himself.
I stayed to make sandwiches while they spread crayons over the table.
She drew a house, a dog we didn’t own, and three people standing under a crooked sun.
Emmett pointed to the smallest figure.
“Is that you?”
May you like
She covered it with her hand.
“I can erase me if Claire comes back.”
