Photo Booth

Mom called twice tonight. She says she’s losing her memory and when I ask what she may be forgetting or how she knows it’s happening, she deflects. “Tell me what you’ve been drawing lately,” she’ll ask instead. This time when she asks, I lazily make my way across the room to my sketch pad; the page it’s opened to is an unfinished landscape of dark greens and bright blues. I swipe my fingers across the smooth page and admire it for a moment. I’d forgotten about this one for quite some time – when I happened upon it this morning, I figured I ought to finally finish what I’d started. I describe the large pines against the sunny sky to Mom, “and there are mountains way off in the distance. They’re so far away, they look more like hills.” She compliments my creativity, though she’s never seen the drawing. She mentions how I drew nothing but clouds when I was a teenager and she’s glad I worked out of that phase in my 20s. I thank her as I internally diminish the praise as if it bears no weight, simply because it came from my own mother.

“It’s time for me to get to bed, dear. You should do the same. It’s late.” As I hang up the phone, I look at the clock and see that it’s nearly midnight. My eyes drift back to the sketch book; I follow the outline of the mountains with my eyes from end to end. It’s been so long since I’d started this one, I don’t recognize where the inspiration might’ve come from. I take a dull, green pencil and begin shading the pine trees. The more I draw, the more familiar the landscape becomes but still, I can’t place it. I draw until there’s nothing to do except sleep.

*

The sun shines through my bedroom windows and wakes me. Bleary-eyed, I lift my head from the pillow to look outside. The cement of my driveway sparkles with moisture. It looks like diamonds were encrusted in the street overnight. I make my way out of bed, hoping to search the Classifieds at breakfast.

In the middle of my driveway sits the Saturday paper. Next to it, I notice a shoe-box-sized parcel covered in brown paper with a thin rope tied around. The only thing written on it is, “To: Leslie.” The parcel is soaked through from the rain. Grabbing it by the rope, I notice it’s also leaking black and pink and yellow and blue from different corners and creases. I consider chucking it in the trash bin but it’s heavy. Whatever it is, it has my name on it. It was intended to be left in the place where I found it. I make my way around the back of the house to the porch. Each bottom corner drips in alteration. Colors combine to make new hues before hitting the ground. Once I reach the porch, I unwrap the parcel with hesitant fingers.

The inside of the box is completely dry. I look up from the box and scan the backyard. I want to tell someone how weird this is or ask if they were as confused as I am. No one else is here. Turning back to the box, I finally see what’s inside.

They’re pictures. Drug store prints from actual film.

The photo on top of the stack is from a tea party I had after my 10th birthday party, after all the kids from my class went home. I’d pulled the balloons down from the ceiling and tied them around the seats of our kitchen chairs so they’d float at my height. I’d found my old drawings of dinosaurs and mammoths, taped them to the balloons, and had a tea party with my art.

That’s the thing about my drawings - they’ve always been better friends. We’re the creators of each other, my art and I. Not only have I made them, I’ve been changed by the mere fact that they exist. That’s why I remember this birthday more than any other growing up. My 10th year is when I realized that my creations pleased me more than anything else in the world.

I call mom, still mesmerized by the photo. She must have dropped these off and left again for our Saturday bagels. I haven’t been able to put it down since I first saw it. The line goes to voicemail but the moment I start to leave a message, my mom walks through the fence of my backyard with bagels and coffee in hand. Her feet squish in the wet grass as she approaches. “I’ve been ringing the doorbell, ya know,” she says as she sits next to me. Without explanation of my absence from answering the door, Mom notices the stack of photos in my hand. “Who is that?” She asks. “It’s me, mom. From my 10th birthday. Remember?” She stares hard at the photo - taking in the blue balloon covered by a stegosaurus sketch and the plastic, white kettle in the middle of our old dining room table. “Where did we go for your 10th birthday?” she asks, confused by my 10-year-old surroundings. “We were at the old house, Mom. The one on Blue Ridge Lake,” I tell her. “Where?” she asks.

*

I spend the day looking through these photos, giving each one equal attention. Mom began looking with me but she kept complaining that the photos weren’t possible.

“You brought these here, mom. Remember?”

“That’s a load of crap! And no, I don’t remember. In fact, I’d say that picture of your tea party was never taken!”

“This picture?” I ask as I place the photograph in front of my mother.

“Who was there, Leslie?”

“My friends went home. See? It’s just me and my drawings,” I say as I point out the obvious from the photograph.

“And me, right? I was there?”

“Mom, of course you were there. It was my birthday. This was our house.”

“Then who took the picture!?” she asked, vexingly. “Because I sure didn’t!”

*

I continue to sift through the photographs. I don’t recognize a single a picture in the stack but I know every person who’s shining in the glossy prints. Me, mom, Aunt Celeste, Grandpa George - it’s all familiar. As I sift through the pile and the memories build, the stack of photographs feels heavier, like weight is added as reminiscence grows fonder. I show mom a picture of me drawing clouds and laugh as I tell her how right she was to be proud I’d moved on. “From clouds?” she asks. “When were you obsessed with clouds?”

*

Mom falls asleep on the couch as I continue sifting through the ever-heavy stack of photographs. I’ve been cycling through photo by photo for hours but I still haven’t reached an end. Suddenly I’ve come across a picture that pulls my attention away from the rest of the stack, away from the day. It’s a landscape of dark greens and bright blues. There’s a chain of hills in the background that looks more like mountains the longer I look. This is the only picture in the stack so far without a human being. I see the detail of the clouds, the depth of the pines. I admire each piece of the photograph and wish I had a knack for art. This would be one hell of a picture to draw.