The airbrushed photos that a staff member slides across the table for me to preview look exactly the way I remember that day.
The photo studio, thick with an inch of dust, hadn’t made me second-guess driving there, using gas money we didn’t have. My two year old son and infant daughter weren’t horrified by the beleaguered woman behind the camera, who vigorously shook a stuffed parrot, gripping it by the neck whilst screeching and lurching across a rugged voice box, “Look at the birdie, look at the birdie,” beads splattering in a zigzag pattern from a split in the seam on one side of its head that continued tearing.
Afterward, a carousel in the center of the mall wasn’t eerily still until I dropped in a coin. I wasn’t concerned that my children’s squeals and the clunky music echoed off the two-story structure, despite it being a Saturday afternoon in 1999.
When I said, “Kids, it’s time to pick up Daddy,” I hadn’t poured more excitement into my voice than the so-called photographer.
We didn’t wait in front of my husband’s friend’s apartment for over an hour. During our time in the parking lot, their dad didn’t stumble to the minivan, offering a variety of excuses for his unwillingness to leave, and his words didn’t slur more with each trip. I wasn’t at all worried that the evening would unravel, everything would be my fault, and I’d be expected to return to pick him up long after I’d tucked our children into bed.
Look at the birdie reverberates through my mind. I know the photo was heavily edited in the red room. “I’ll take the photo that has the coupon,” I say. It’s perfect.
Joy DeSomber lives in South Carolina with her husband and Malinois X, now that her three children are grown. She writes fiction and creative nonfiction.
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