They Left Me Out Of The Picture So I Created My Own Chapter 28
The following summer, my new exhibition, *Inside and Outside the Frame*, opened at the gallery in Chelsea.
This time, there was no empty chair in the center of the room.
In its place stood a wall made of hundreds of photographs.
Ms. Ruiz, applauding from the audience at the awards ceremony.
Professor Dunn, standing beside the lecture hall screen.
My friends, sitting on the gallery floor, hair a mess, tools still in their hands.
Leo, holding a cup of coffee crowned with failed leaf foam, looking solemnly into the lens.
And in the very center, me.
Sometimes standing alone. Sometimes surrounded by people.
Every photograph had been taken after I came to Providence.
They weren’t perfect, but no one had been habitually cut from the frame.
Before the exhibition opened, the Outside the Frame Materials Grant completed its second round of funding.
Some of the students we’d funded last year had won state awards. Some hadn’t won anything at all.
But all of their work had been mailed before the deadline.
That was enough.
My father sent a card with no attached request.
*Congratulations on the opening. I won’t post this publicly, and you don’t need to reply.*
I read it and put it in a drawer.
We stayed in occasional contact by email.
He no longer asked when I was coming home, and he never again reposted articles about me with captions about his family’s support.
Sadie went to a college she chose for herself. We weren’t close, but we could exchange a polite holiday greeting.
It wasn’t a happy ending.
It was just everyone finally taking responsibility for their own choices.
Ten minutes before the exhibition opened, Leo found my mother’s old lens in my equipment case.
“Using this today?”
“Yeah.”
I mounted the lens onto my camera and set up the tripod.
It was old. The focus ring dragged a little when I turned it, but the glass was still clear.
I aimed the viewfinder at the wall of photographs.
Out of habit, Leo took his place behind the camera.
“How long on the timer?”
“Ten seconds.”
“Enough time for you to run back?”
“Enough.”
I pressed the shutter and walked toward the center of the gallery.
But Leo didn’t stay where he was.
He hit the timer and ran out from behind the camera. With two seconds to spare, he came to stand beside me.
“I’m in this one too,” he said.
I laughed.
“I thought this was my solo show.”
“Artists need friends to prove they’ve eaten on time.”
The red light of the self-timer flashed quickly.
Outside the gallery, the first visitors were already waiting. On the wall behind us, every person who had ever truly seen me was quietly facing the camera.
I stood in the center, my shoulder brushing against Leo’s.
No one had moved aside to make room for me.
Because that place had always been mine.
Just before the shutter clicked, I caught my reflection in the glass of a framed print.
I was no longer the shadow holding the camera for a four-person Christmas card, no longer the girl ignored so naturally at an empty table.
I had my own name, my own work, my own income, and my own choices.
My mother’s lens recorded the moment for me.
And the life inside that lens belonged to no one but myself.
The flash went off.
This time, the picture was complete.
The End