Shutter by Ramona Emerson

Author:Ramona Emerson [Emerson, Ramona]
Language: spa
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mom’s Cameras

I WAS A senior when Mom got sick. Her kidneys were failing, and no one could figure out why. Mom wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, but I could see that she was in pain. She ate less and less and had to go to dialysis more and more. I just wanted to stay with her, to make sure that she was okay.

We started playing hooky all the time. She would call into work and would call in for me at school. Mom had it down.

“She’s been throwing up since last night,” Mom would report. “We can come pick up her homework.”

We would pay to see one movie at the first morning showing at the multiplex, then sneak from one show to another until we couldn’t take it anymore. Then we would go out and buy horrible food and rent bad movies and go home. There was no mention of homework or schedules. It was just me and my mom, all day, every day, for a couple of weeks.

I was always eager to drive, so my mom and I went all over. We drove for miles, to ruins, to the tops of mountain ranges, to churches and ashrams up in northern New Mexico. We talked about movies and books as we drove home in the orange of sunset, like we were enduring friends. I learned a lot about her during those three weeks.

“You’re going to go to college, aren’t you?” Mom asked on one of those days. She sat in the dirt and sketched a small drawing of the canyon below.

“That was the idea. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“What do you want?” She stopped her sketch.

“I want stability. And I want to fix Grandma’s garage.”

Mom laughed. She turned away from me and dug into her knapsack, a green bag full of holes. She brought out a square of fabric wrapped around the body of a slightly used Hasselblad 500 C/M. She held it with both hands and looked out into the breezy canyon. I waited to hear the snap of the exposure. Instead, I heard nothing. Just the building of the wind beneath our perch.

“You know, I took a picture of your father with a camera just like this. Well, older, of course, and heavier.”

“My father?” I was surprised. “I thought I just hatched.” There was an uneasy silence for a few seconds. “I never heard you talk about him before. Not since I was a baby.”

“You can’t remember being a baby,” Mom said. “That’s impossible.”

“I can do a lot of things that I’ve never told you about.” This was the first time I had ever challenged my mother. I didn’t like it. “I can remember. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ruined your plans.” I rose and shook the dust from my jeans. “I’m sorry.”

She handed the camera to me.

“This is yours, now. You’ll have my cameras. All of them.”

I was stunned. “When did you buy this, Mom? It looks brand-new.”

“A while back.” She stared at the camera in my hands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.