A Flickering Light

  “This is nice, Jessie. I like sitting and talking with you.”

  Selma leaned into Jessie; the scent of lavender wafted through the night. Jessie stroked her sister’s hair. “This is nice,” Jessie said. “I’ve had this photography project this week, but I’ll be putting my treasured camera aside for a time.”

  “Mama says to be wary of where your treasure is because there lays your heart also. I’d hate to think your heart belongs more to that camera than to us.”

  “I’d hate to think that too,” Jessie said. “And it doesn’t. After tomorrow I’ll have a lot more time to be with you.”

  “What’s happening on Saturday?” Selma asked.

  “My project will be finished.”

  Too Much Exposure

  SELMA RETURNED TO THEIR BED. Jessie heard her deep in slumber behind her, as she sat on the roof. She imagined Lilly wearing her sleeping cap, a waste on this hot night as far as Jessie was concerned. She’d read that heat left the body through one’s head, so why keep it contained on a June night? Habit, she supposed.

  Maybe habit had led Jessie astray, her habit of stepping ahead when others might have heeded their hesitating heart. If she didn’t face the truth, Selma might be led astray too. She’d have to get the strength from somewhere else to “truly finish the project,” because relying on her own determination had gotten her lying to her sister. She wouldn’t even let herself think about how far she’d fallen from God’s grace. First Roy and now this.

  Jessie remained awake, ruminating on what she had to do. She still hadn’t slept when she heard the stirrings of her father in the kitchen, then her mother talking quietly about their day. The smell of bacon lifted through the room. Soft laughter arose. She heard Roy rustling about in his room. This was what a relationship between a man and woman was meant to be.

  Why had she let herself fall in love with the wrong person? She’d been distracted from who she really was. She wasn’t “the other woman.” Jessie wasn’t a part of what happened between Mrs. Bauer and her husband. And Mrs. Bauer had no place in what had happened between Jessie and Fred. It was just the two of them. No one else need be affected.

  And yet Selma was entangled in it now. And perhaps Winnie, depending on what the five-year-old really understood. Their witness was the greatest shame of all.

  The truth was that she’d tarnished what love was meant to be by giving it to someone who could never return it in the way she wanted. Maybe she was just a conniving woman who lacked any kind of soul. Maybe those early church fathers who argued over whether women have souls were right to wonder.

  No, she did have a soul, and she had tried to make it whole. But love without integrity failed to make anything complete; it could only rub the soul raw, leave a sore behind. Her pain was her own doing, and she deserved what she got. But not Selma. She couldn’t bring Selma down, hoped that she could reverse her younger sister’s romantic views. She had to. She planned to leave the house without her mother’s asking why she was going in so early. She needed all the time she could get to do what must be done.

  The door stood open, inviting the morning breeze to clear the air of chemical smells and that stuffy feel of a studio with doors and windows locked all night. FJ lifted the window in the operating room, hoping no flies planned to make their home on the sill. The black dots they caused had to be watched for on the studio’s white backdrops. One wouldn’t think such a little thing as a fly spot would show up in a photo, but it did. Even worse was having a fly or some moth flit around and bother people in their poses. Just as he’d be ready to snap the shutter, a man might wave his hand at the insect and they’d have a ruined plate. Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t noticed many flies of late. He wondered if Voe put something out to discourage them. Or maybe Jessie had. He’d have to ask.

  He expected Jessie to be early, as she said she’d prepared a surprise for him. He awaited yet dreaded her appearance. Their last morning. He, a foolish man, felt alive in her presence as he never had before, but the aching life force was terminal, and he knew it. He cheated his own family by drawing on her instead of on them, instead of on his own vows, for sustenance. He was hurting his children. Who knew how Winnie interpreted their encounter? And Russell’s eyes the day of Voe’s wedding would haunt him forever. He’d kept his imagination in check, carefully in check. He’d brought her hat in. He’d stuffed it with his shirt collars and meant to keep it, but then he saw it this morning and he knew. He had to return it. There could be no hanging on.

  He had something else he wanted her to have too.

  But she was late. He checked the clock. He went about trying to concentrate on what had to be done. He scanned the appointment book. The Wobitz family of four was scheduled for ten. He didn’t know them. But it didn’t matter. He set about moving the cabinet to the position usually used for a four-person portrait that included children and at least one person sitting. He hoped the children were well behaved. He heard the back door open.

  “Jessie?” he asked. His clients would use the front door, surely. “Miss Gaebele?” He left the operating room, walked through the lobby area and the office area back toward the kitchen.

  “We know we’re early, but it took us less time to get here than we woulda thought. Wobitz.” The man removed his hat, reached out his hand. “We came in the back way. What we’re used to. Hope you can arrange us now. We’ll get our chores done here in town and then get an early start back home.”

  “My assistant is due anytime,” FJ said. “I’m sure we can work you in right away.” He kept annoyance from his voice.

  He took the woman’s purse and was introduced to the children, a bright-looking girl and glowering boy, who plopped crossly on the bench and said, “Why do we have to do this?” He must have been around ten. Where was Jessie?

  He’d done this alone long before Jessie came into his life. He’d have to do it again. “Let’s begin,” he said, “so we can get young William here taken care of and on his way. Here, will you hold this prop for me?” He handed the boy a wooden ship he removed from the closet.

  William brightened and began to cooperate, so FJ was able to pose them all quickly. He thanked the child several times, and the lad paid close attention. FJ took three shots, then had to stop and put more plates into the frame before sliding it into the camera. Jessie or Voe usually anticipated this and had it done for him. The boy fidgeted. The girl sneezed. A fly buzzed by. Just one, but he thought he ought to close the windows. Was that a box elder bug crawling on the backdrop? It was late for a box elder bug. He didn’t want to take the time. Jessie could retouch it. He reset the pose, moved the window drape to change the light, all the while growing worried that Jessie wasn’t there.

  The hour passed. The family gave him their deposit, and he told them the photographs would be ready in a week or so for them to look at and decide which they might want to keep and how many prints they might want to purchase. Voe would have to do some of the developing. He wanted to limit his exposure to the chemicals as much as he could. The girl would one day have to stop working with chemicals, but it had taken him years, nearly fifteen, before he’d had his first episode, and that after developing thousands of photographs for himself and his father-in-law.

  The girl. Voe was the girl, but Jessie was Jessie. Hopefully Jessie would find a young man to marry before exposure to the chemicals ever took its toll on her. Working for Ralph Carleton would keep her safe for a time. But she loved her art…more than he did, he suspected.

  FJ’s mind went to Carleton as he removed the last plates from the frames. He’d never heard the man preach, but Mrs. Bauer and her mother and sister had gone once to his tent meeting. A Reverend Moody had spoken too, and the women praised him more highly than the local man. A prophet in his own home is never appreciated, FJ thought, or maybe the man wasn’t as good as Moody. Or Billy Sunday, the baseball player turned evangelist. He didn’t want to think about these men now, nor of the messages they preached. Oh, he knew they talke
d about redemption, but not first and foremost. Sin and shame took top billing with them. He swallowed. Jessie was a good girl. It was he who had violated the order of things, as the poet had said, he who’d failed to “protect and border and salute,” acts which were the marks of love.

  Maybe Jessie hadn’t intended to come in until the scheduled appointment. FJ couldn’t remember if they’d discussed that. Maybe something had happened to her. She’d been hit by a train or sprained an ankle while walking as fast as she always did. Could she have been injured? Was she simply going to walk out of his life? Was that the surprise? He’d wait until noon, and if she wasn’t there by then, he would call her house, just to be sure that something hadn’t gone wrong. He couldn’t live if something had happened to her.

  His hands shook at the outrageous thought he’d just had. He would be living without her the rest of his days.

  Jessie opened her eyes with a start. The house reeked of quiet. She heard voices outside in the yard. A light breeze moved the fringe on the lamp. She had just curled up in the window seat for a minute, hoping her late prayers might give her direction, if she took a few moments to listen when her pleading finished, if she could follow the Spirit’s leading before leaving the house. If she could do what she must. But she’d fallen asleep! What time was it? Her neck ached.

  She untwisted her legs while folding the flannel sheet. She grabbed for her glasses and found her necklace watch. Eleven o’clock! She’d slept four hours? Why hadn’t they awakened her, her brother and sisters?

  Selma! She’d probably told them Jessie hadn’t slept all night, and when they came in to dress and saw her sound asleep, they had simply left her there. But how could they have dressed and carried on without her hearing anything? She’d missed the appointment that was scheduled at the studio! He’d had to do it alone.

  It wasn’t like her to sleep through something so important. Her fingers trembled as she sponged herself off, then buttoned her shirtwaist. Her body had made the decision without her head’s even knowing about it. She rushed around now, grabbed the small box she’d buried beneath the winter quilts in the hall chest, looked for the Formalin tablet. Found it. She located her Graflex satchel, ran down the narrow stairs, shouted out the back door that she was off to work and would be home for supper.

  She turned and ran into her mother.

  Her mother stood like an oak, unmoving. Behind her, Jessie’s father waited with torment in his eyes. He looked worse than when he writhed on the floor, holding his side. And I’ve done this to him. Jessie shrank in shame.

  “Are you all right, Papa?” Jessie asked. He had his hand on his side. “Do I need to help you—”

  “I am not well,” he said.

  “Have you called the doc—”

  “We are profoundly troubled to have raised a daughter who would choose to corrupt another’s marriage bed.” This from her mother, who trembled as she spoke.

  Jessie stepped back from both of them, the force like wind sucking the breath from her. Her heart pounded; her eyes darted this way and that seeking escape, knowing there was none. “I…I haven’t… We, no—”

  “Such shame!” Her mother’s words stabbed through lips quivering, eyes blazing. Screaming violins raged inside Jessie’s head. She felt hot and cold at once, her heart at breakneck speed, her palms wet. She couldn’t look at their faces. This must be how a rabbit caught in a trap felt, knowing all would change now. Life as she’d known it was over.

  Selma had told them. But how much? Enough. Whatever Selma told them would be enough. The disappointment on her parents’ faces hurt her like a burn.

  “He gave you a career, and you threw it all away and seared your soul as well,” her father said. He shook his head.

  “He should have known better, but so should you,” her mother said. “Why? How could you?”

  She didn’t know what to say, how to say anything with her heart racing and her breath choking in her throat.

  Deny it! It wasn’t his fault.

  “Selma has it wrong,” Jessie croaked. “I don’t know what she told you, but we haven’t, that is, I haven’t. Nothing’s passed between us. Nothing about a marriage bed, Mama. Truly. If there had been, do you think I’d dare work for Ralph Carleton, who sees into people’s souls?”

  Her mother reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Jessie took the reprieve as a time to leave. “I need to go on to work, to finish my last day. That’s all it’s been. A professional relationship. Selma misunderstood. I’ve been planning to quit. You know I have. I’ll be working for Ralph.”

  “You’re not going anywhere until you speak the truth!”

  Jessie had never in her life heard her father shout, not at troubling mules, not at his pain, not at any family member, not ever. The redness of his face frightened Jessie, and she stumbled backward, farther from her parents.

  In that moment, she knew, truly accepted what she’d done.

  “Papa…I…tried. I truly did. I just couldn’t avoid it. It was as though I was drawn to him, like needing to breathe.” She was crying now, her nose running as she wiped at her eyes, reached for a hanky embroidered with lilies of the valley. “All I ever wanted was to take the photographs, but then…” She trembled. “I’m so sorry, Papa, so sorry.” She stood with heaving shoulders. “I didn’t know how to stop. I kept doing what I didn’t want to do, and what I wanted to do, I just couldn’t.”

  He’d dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head. He might have looked calmer, but Jessie couldn’t tell through her tear-swollen eyes.

  “We always fall short, Daughter. It’s a human thing that only unwarranted love can bring us through.”

  “I only wanted to help him, Papa.”

  “The truth, Jessie. Only the truth will set you free.”

  She wouldn’t have to pretend anymore, wouldn’t have to lie to herself or mislead Lilly or Selma or Voe or anyone else. But oh, to admit this truth, to admit that she had acted so unwisely, had compromised her future and her heart. She shivered now as though a cold breeze had moved into her chest, and she ached so profoundly she thought she’d never gain her breath. Deep sobs wracked up through her from the darkness of who she’d been. Long shards of yearning pierced her side. Not unlike her father’s rolling pain, she doubled over, holding herself, bleeding inside. She rocked. “I am so sorry. So sorry.”

  Her father reached out, then took steps toward her, and she fell into his arms. Hot tears ran from her eyes, pushed out through her nose, and made her stomach ache with the waves of her shame.

  “I am too, Daughter,” he said. He held her. “We’ll send a letter to him explaining why you didn’t go today.”

  “A letter?” She stepped back to look at him. “No, Papa. I have to go in. I have to. I have this present I got for him, as a thank-you for all the years of his teaching me, and I need to give it to him, to keep my commitment to help him during this week with Voe gone.”

  “A gift? For that man? No.” Her mother crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s done enough damage.”

  “Please, Mama. It’s my fault, not his.”

  “Gifts.” She snorted. “When we’re saving every penny to help Roy and you said you were too. That dress was one thing, but a gift for him? You must take it back.”

  “I can’t, Mama. But it will be the last of things with him, I promise. I’ll be strong enough.” She wasn’t sure that was true, but she had to make it so.

  “Not on your own, Daughter,” her father said. “You must lean on us and the Source of your faith. You’ve been given so much. I’m so sorry you didn’t know how to receive it.”

  She forced herself up the studio’s back steps. He must have been waiting, seen her dragging down the street with her blotchy face and puffy eyes, because as soon as she opened the door, he pulled her into the kitchen and into his arms. She sank like a flower to a bee.

  “Where have you been? I worried over you, worried!”

  His arms felt so safe, so warm… I
do the things I do not want to do.

  She pushed him away. She had to be strong. This had to end. If she didn’t do it right, her father would come here or her mother, and oh, the humiliation of that! Or worse, she’d fail again.

  “Your eyes,” he said, holding her at arm’s length. “You’ve been crying. You did get hurt. What happened? Who? I’ll—”

  She moved as far from him in the kitchen as she could without leaving the room, crossed her arms over her chest, held herself together with her fingers pinching. Feel this pain so you will know what you have to do. “They know,” she whispered. “My parents know. Selma… Whatever she thought she saw was enough to convince them, and I… I confessed, told them it was all me, not you.”

  “But we’ve done nothing—”

  “Yes. We. Have. That’s the truth of it. We have.” She dropped her arms, leaned into the oak door frame; the rounded edges pushed against her back, and she gained strength from the oak. She pushed at her hair, tucked the tendrils behind her glasses, lenses no longer steamed by the tears and his closeness.

  He paced, his hands gripping into fists and releasing. “I am so sorry, so very sorry. What a confounded fool I am. I should have—”

  “I’m responsible for my part in this, and I have to get myself out of it,” she said. “I’ve come to say good-bye, to give you this small gift as a thank-you for all you’ve taught me.” She moved like a wary cat in a room full of dogs, around the table to her camera bag. She took the small box from it, put it out to him. He stared at her, not understanding. She shoved it toward him. “Here, take it.”

  He could hold it in his palm, and he did that now, lifting the cover. She had eked out five cents a week from her paycheck to pay for it, ever since he’d purchased that camera for her. As her mother had noted, she’d deprived her family of that five cents, put money into trespass.

  “I won’t be around to give it to you in August, when you turn forty-five. It’s the last gift I’ll ever give you, except for my going away.”