Chapter 33

It was the next weekend before I had the pictures ready to give to Laura and her mother. The photos were actually ready the next morning, but my mom insisted on getting the one for Laura’s mom matted and framed which took the rest of the following week.

I didn’t understand at first why we only got the one framed, but when mom explained to me why, I felt like a complete idiot. Of course we couldn’t get the one for Laura’s dad framed! There was no way the warden and the guards would allow that in his prison cell.

When I showed up at Laura’s house with the two finished products, one was actually framed, and the other was just in a manilla envelope. It came as no surprise to me that both Laura and her mother were ecstatic when they saw what I had held in my hands as Laura ushered me in.

“Come in, come in!” Mrs. Satori called out.

The kindness and excitement in her voice was more than a little evident. I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. I took a seat on the couch and Laura plopped down next to me. I fully expected Mrs. Satori to sit down, right next to us, but instead she sat down in the recliner across from us.

“I take it those are the pictures?” Laura’s mom asked. “Your mom called to let me know she was getting one of them professionally framed.”

“Yeah, she told me. Here you go,” I replied, holding out the framed picture with the large yellow envelope lying on top.

Mrs. Satori was sitting too far away for me to just hand them to her and got up without any comments on my rudeness and took them from me with a genuine smile on her face. She set the folder down on the coffee table and remained standing as she looked at the framed image of her daughter.

I wasn’t sure what to expect for a reaction. Everyone reacts differently when they see my pictures. She had seen them already the night we took them, but they weren’t done. The image didn’t change, but it looked different now, more complete, and professional.

The frame and the matting were perfect. The image showed Laura on her knees, sitting on her ankles while she was holding one of those dahlias in both hands, her head tilted slightly forward, and her eyes closed as she smelled the flower just in front of her nose. It was elegant and beautiful. The finishing touches my mom had chosen furthered that.

The smile on Mrs. Satori’s face started to slip and I could feel my palms start to sweat and my throat tighten up. Then, her lower lip started to quiver, and I could see tears starting to pool in the bottom of her eyes.

“What’s wrong, why are you crying?” Laura jumped up and rushed over to her mom.

Mrs. Satori turned her head and smiled at Laura’s obvious worry but managed to bark out both a sob and laugh at the same time. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as if embarrassed by her sudden outburst and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, causing deep wrinkles to form in the corners, giving away her age. When she blinked, those tears that had welled up fell and I watched them slowly fall down her face leaving subtle tracks through her makeup.

“There’s nothing wrong honey,” Mrs. Satori said between sniffles. “Look.”

Laura’s mom turned the picture so Laura could see it. Laura looked at the picture for a second before her cheeks started to turn pink and she gave her mother a tight, loving hug.

“Is it okay?” I asked, not sure what to say at that moment. “I tried to tell my mo—”

“It’s perfect!” Mrs. Satori said, cutting my nervous rambling off mid-sentence. “I am going to have to do something to thank her for this. It’s wonderful.”

“Well, um,” I stammered. “I might’ve, uh ... Well, there’s more...”

Both Laura and her mom just looked at me with identical looks on their faces—one eyebrow, the left one, raised in question—while neither woman said a word.

“Open the umm, that one.” I winced.

Laura picked up the envelope and handed it to her mom. Both looked at me again before opening it and taking out not one, but two pictures I had slid inside.

The first, the one on top, was the one they had expected. It was the match to the one my mom had gotten framed for Mrs. Satori. The second, though, was a surprise and no one knew I had made it, except for Professor Peterson. He had helped me with this little secret project.

When the second picture was revealed, it was Laura who was shocked, slapping a hand over her face when she audibly gasped.

“Is this the one from your studio?” Mrs. Satori asked.

“No, it’s not,” I answered, shaking my head to emphasize it further. “That’s a copy. If it weren’t for that picture, none of this would have happened. I wanted you to have a copy, too.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Satori replied.

“You don’t have to say anything.” I smiled, my cheeks heating.

I spent the whole day over at Laura’s house. Her mom insisted that I stay for dinner. I wasn’t about to say no to that. We talked about all sorts of things. Mrs. Satori kept going on and on about how she couldn’t wait to show her husband the pictures of Laura.

Then, when we finished eating, Laura’s mom left the room and gave me and Laura some alone time on the living room couch. We didn’t abuse the sudden freedom, not completely anyway. We made out a bit, nothing too hot and heavy, but more than enough to get both of us breathing hard when we finally pulled apart.

When it was time for me to go, I called my mom to come and get me. That’s when Mrs. Satori cornered me.

“I need to tell you something, Josh,” Laura’s mom said, taking a step in my direction. “I ... well, I don’t know how to say this exactly.”

My eyes flicked between Laura and her mother. Laura just shrugged at my questioning look. Apparently, she had no idea what this was about either.

“I need to apologize ... to you.” I started to lift my hands and wave her off. “No really, I do. I thought ... You know what? It doesn’t matter what I thought. I was wrong. I never should have treated you the way I did at the gallery and after. I was just so angry and frankly, I was scared.”

“It’s okay, I understand, Mrs. Satori,” I replied.

“I don’t think you do. You might when you have kids of your own.” She gave a stern to Laura. “Which won’t be for years, do you hear me young lady!”

“No kids until I’m thirty-five, like dad said,” Laura replied and that got a bark of laughter out her mom while my eyes went wide at the frankness of the comment.

“Exactly,” her mom agreed. “So, Josh, do you forgive me?”

Laura’s mom stood there, her arms out wide, inviting me in for a hug. I just grinned and walked into them as she wrapped them around me while I snaked mine around her. She wrapped me in a hug and squeezed me ... hard.

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed even tighter before releasing me. “That means a lot to me.”

It was the last week of my photography class at the university, and I still hadn’t turned in my final project. The rest of my team, except for Jerry, had gotten theirs done in the last few weeks. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do until I saw some long exposure and time lapse pictures that really intrigued me.

The idea was a picture from a high vantage point over a section of highways and intersections. The long exposure allowed the taillights and headlights of cars to look like long, continuous, neon lines racing across the picture. I don’t know why I was so curious about that style of picture, but I was. It reminded me of those early pictures I took with my pinhole camera outside, when the wind would pick up just enough to blow someone’s hair around creating movement in the final image.