The Wife He Forgot Was The One He Loved Most Chapter 07
Ryan’s studio was in a converted red-brick building in Brooklyn.
Sunlight was pouring across the wood floor as I pushed open the door.
Ryan was crouched on the ground, fiddling with the aperture on an old film camera.
“Anna!” He stood up. There was a smudge of dust on his white T-shirt. “Come look. I just got my hands on a Hasselblad. Condition is unreal.”
I walked over. Inside the glass case, an old camera rested quietly, silver-grey body glowing softly.
I reached in and touched it. Cool metal, satisfyingly weighty.
Ryan was chattering beside me.
“I was going to keep it for myself, but then I remembered you saying you wanted to do a series on the old parts of the city. Figured you could put it to better use.”
I crouched there for a long time, and slowly my mouth curled up.
Ryan’s studio wasn’t big, but every wall was covered in photographs.
Steam rising off a bagel shop in the early morning. The silhouette of a sanitation worker under a streetlamp late at night. An old woman running through the brownstone streets in the rain, umbrella held high.
The compositions breathed. The palette leaned warm—like the man himself, unhurried and easy.
I stood in front of his Four A.M. at the Farmers Market series, and by the third photograph my nose stung.
It was a pair of hands.
Hands belonging to an old woman selling vegetables at Union Square Greenmarket—dirt caked under the fingernails, knuckles thick and gnarled, and still those hands were carefully picking wilted leaves off her stems, laying every bunch neatly on the stall.
“This one’s good,” I said.
Ryan came over and scratched the back of his head. “Took me a whole week to get it. She sets up at three-thirty every morning. First few days she ducked away every time she saw the camera. I went and bought a bunch of herbs from her every morning. Once we were on speaking terms, she let me shoot.”
“The composition breathes.”
His eyes lit up. “Anna—you get it.”
We talked for a long time that afternoon.
When I left the studio at dusk, Ryan pressed a key into my hand.
“Front door and the cabinet. Your workstation is by the window—best light. Come by whenever.”
I walked out of the red-brick building with the key in my palm, and the early winter wind swept past carrying the sweet smell of roasted chestnuts.
I took a deep breath. Something in my chest had loosened.
…
By the time I got back to Ashwood, the light was fading.
I’d just punched in the gate code when I saw Stella crouched on the front steps, a kraft-paper box in her arms.
“Anna!” She jumped up, eyes red from tiredness. “I’ve been waiting for you for two hours! Where were you?”
“An interview.”
“An interview?” Her eyes went round. “You’re not even officially— I mean, you’re not even divorced yet!”
I opened the door and let her in. “I still have to live.”
Stella had a mouthful of things to say and swallowed them all, sinking into the couch. She lifted the lid off the box and slid it toward me.
“See for yourself. I found this in Ethan’s study, top shelf of the bookcase. There was a layer of dust on it.”
Inside was a brown leather-bound journal, edges worn soft. There were a few dark blotches on the cover—like the marks left behind when something wet had once soaked in and then dried.
I picked it up and opened to the first page.
Ethan’s handwriting. Neat, weighted strokes, clean and cold, like the man himself.
May 12, 2016. Interview for the front desk. She wore a white shirt, collar washed pale but ironed flat. Résumé says community college associate degree. I was going to reject her on that basis. Flipped to the last page. There was a photograph tucked inside. An old street at dusk, cobblestones gold in the last light, well composed. I kept the résumé.
My fingers tightened on the page. I flipped to the next.
June 2016. Three months in. She brought files to my office. Tips of her ears bright red. Her fingers shook when she handed me the coffee. She doesn’t know I looked at her for seven full seconds from my desk.
October 2016. Company autumn gala. She hid in the stairwell and cried for a long time. Someone had said to her face that she’d gotten where she was on her looks. I stood at the corner of the corridor for forty minutes. Memorized the way she looked when she cried. Later I transferred the person who said it to the West Coast branch.
January 2017. Decided to pursue her. My father will make a scene, but I don’t want to wait anymore. That photograph of hers, the street at dusk—I look at it every night before I go to sleep.
March 12, 2017. First dinner. She ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. I added the truffle soup, the seared foie gras, wagyu. She kept sneaking looks at the prices. It was adorable.
July 2017. Her birthday. Booked out the entire terrace at The Rainbow Room. She wore a pale blue sundress, the cheapest one, and when she smiled her eyes crinkled into crescents. That night I asked her why she was with me. She said, “You saw the photograph of the dusk, didn’t you?” I nodded. She said, “Then that’s enough.”
I was holding the journal in both hands. A tear splashed onto the page and darkened a small circle.
Stella was sniffling next to me. “Anna… Ethan isn’t unloving. He just misplaced his memories.”
I closed the journal and drew a breath. “I know.”
I turned to the last page. A photograph was tucked inside.
The office photo taken on my first day—white shirt, messy bun, eyes crescented in a smile.
On the back, in fresh handwriting that looked recent:
She doesn’t look like this anymore. But even so—my heart still jumps when I see this picture.
I sat there stunned.
He’d written this after the accident.
I looked up out the window. Night had fallen completely; in the distance, the office towers of Manhattan had lights scattered across their upper floors.
One of those lights was on the top floor of the Sinclair Group building.
I hugged the journal against my chest. My heart was thudding, hard, against the cover.
He was finding his way back.
Even if only a little at a time.