Every Picture Tells a Story

Bud and I had been on the brink of divorce for at least ten years. The finale came with his affair with the second wife of his long-time tennis partner. Her name was Katrina. I’d met her a few times and because she was blond and athletic I probably should have known something would happen with Bud sooner or later. 

According to my husband, the attraction didn’t last long. When he made his confession, there wasn’t much to tell. It was over before it began, he said with obvious regret. In any event, he felt it necessary to explain to me how he couldn’t stop himself from sleeping with her, how amazingly sexy she was, and how sorry he was for betraying my trust. Again.

There were three affairs before Katrina (that I knew of). Two he admitted to me after the fact and one I found out about from Jackie, the tennis club gossip who studied the habits of married couples like an anthropologist. Don’t ask me why I stayed with Bud as long as I did. Every time I was ready to call a lawyer and file papers, I’d talk myself out of it by lying to myself that our kids would suffer, though they had both told me that they would welcome our divorce if it meant there’d be no more arguing.

But after Bud’s confession about Short Term Katrina, my heart and mind just moved on. Not physically, but emotionally. I was well into my 40s, working my mid-level job in advertising, and finished with my own unhappiness. The idea had finally come to me that I wanted to live a purposeful life, not the badly written soap opera I’d indulged in for so long.

Shortly after Bud’s last confession, our son Tom returned from a volunteer job rebuilding a clinic in Alabama after a tornado hit the area. He would take four weeks off at home before returning to Reed. I praised him daily for how he had turned his compassion for people living in poverty into meaningful action. He had even taken on a second job there tutoring a sixth grader who needed help with his reading.

While we looked at the parade of photographs he’d taken on his phone, I wanted to really taste Tom’s’ life in Selma. I got lost in the images my son shared with me, all from another world, so different and punishing from the uninspiring suburban landscape he’d been brought up in and I continued to inhabit. 

There was a story for every picture. An old brick church with a missing steeple stood out to me. But there were also kids on bikes making faces for the camera, partially collapsed buildings spilling into the streets, the bright faces of Tom’s fellow volunteers, a barber shop with a boarded-up window, the traditional barber’s pole still turning, a gathering of customers outside deep in conversation, school teachers drinking coffee on a wooden porch.

We talked about his friend Jackson, a twelve-year-old Science savant with no place to study other than the uninhabitable town library. Jackson lived with his Grandma Shania, half American Indian, half Black. Grandma Shania, proposed to Tom that he take Jackson back with him to Oregon. They had only just met. Jackson groaned and told Tom not to pay any attention to Grandma. She was always coming up with ways to get her grandson out of Alabama.

Tom told me he loved Jackson and Grandma Shania as soon as he’d met them, but maybe taking him back to Oregon was asking too much. We looked at each other for many long seconds before I said what was on my mind.

“I wish we could do more, Tommy. I already have a fantasy about putting Grandma in the spare bedroom and Jackson in yours  But isn’t it presumptuous to think they would leave home – their friends and family – for 80% white Ashland, Oregon?”

“He knows all about that. About the 80%,” Tom said.

“I just don’t know how practical it would be, you know? We’re strangers to him.”

“I’m not.”

“OK, you’re right. You’re not. Are you suggesting that we invite him to stay here while you’re in Portland?”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Mom. It’s your fantasy.. But anything is better than where he is now.”

We left the conversation hanging, but the questions in my head kept coming. What about Bud? Divorce isn’t a walk in the park. And what about Julie, our daughter? A senior in high school. She had a right to vote on the idea. Would we invite Grandma Shania too? Could Jackson stay with us during the school year and go back to Selma in the summer? Could we find a good Science program for him? As far as I could tell there were no Black people anywhere living near us. Was I acting out the part of a Woke White Lady trying to make up for the privileges I’d had all my life?

Bud helped us all out a week later. On Sunday morning I came into the bedroom and found him packing two suitcases. 

“Going somewhere?”

“You know it. I’ve got a furnished place out past Lithia Park. It’s better this way.” He didn’t look up, folding his shirts and pants.

I watched him a while, not feeling much except a faded sorrow that we had come to this.

Bud was gone by evening. Monday morning a brilliant yellow sun woke me from a solid night’s sleep spent alone in my old bed. A new life had materialized sometime during the night. The day ahead would be an experiment, like waking up in a foreign city in a different time zone. I got up to make coffee and find my children.

Julie and Tom sat at the big kitchen table sipping coffee and staring at their phones like they were reading novels. 

“We already know, Mom,” Julie said.

“Know?”

“That Dad moved out.”

I sat down next to my daughter and pulled her close. Her warm face buried in my shoulder, she whispered “He told us yesterday. It’s ok, Mom. We’re ok. This is for the best.”

Tom added that they would see Bud in a week at his new place. Relief settled in on top of the sadness I felt the night before watching Bud leave to do whatever it was he was going to do.

I surprised myself by asking Tom “Is now a good time to talk about Jackson?” I was late for work, but the agency was lax about all that since the pandemic. Tom looked confused.

“Jackson? What about him?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about him and wanting to help. How about he stays with us for the semester and we see how that goes?” I said. “With Julie’s permission too of course.” Julie shook her head and smiled indulgently.

“Once again Mom. I know. Tom told me all about Jackson. It’s fine with me if it is with you.” 

“Wow, ok. I guess I’m always the last to know. First Bud, now you two.” But I was too happy to feel anything but curious about the adventure we’d just signed up for together.

###

When we picked Jackson up at the airport he was taller and more talkative than I’d guessed. He was on his own; his Grandma had decided to stay in Selma for the time being. 

“I already miss her,” Jackson told us on the car ride back to our house. Tom put his hand on Jackson’s head and left it there. Jackson looked out the window at Oregon.

“You can give her a call and let her know you got here safely,” I said.

“I just texted her,” Jackson reported matter-of-factly. 

The days that followed were busy getting Jackson acclimated to his new home, signing him up at school and introducing him to Mr. Sutherland, the Science teacher who had agreed to work one-on-one with him in the afternoons. Jackson’s teacher called me to explain she had talked to Jackson’s class about welcoming him to school like anyone else and they took it to heart. Jackson quickly made friends with a trio of boys his age and the four of them traversed the neighborhood together on their bicycles. Jackson stood out from his classmates like a tall curly-haired celebrity. He was smart enough to know that and young enough to want their company anyway.

Jackson was shy around me for a week. I was already in love with him, but let him take his time. My old married life felt like it had been left at a motel 50 miles back. When I told Bud how strange and wonderful it was that Jackson had come to stay, he said “You should have done something like this years ago. It suits you.” That was one of the nicest things he’d said to me in years.

There were the inevitable ups and downs. Jackson was on his phone a lot, texting with Grandma and friends back home. He didn’t always like the meals I made. But he was doing well in school and working on an extracurricular science project with Mr. Sutherland. After homework, he and Julie spent evenings together watching TV and playing video games.

One night at dinner, I asked Jackson how he thought things were going for him in Ashland. Tom had left to go back to Reed and wouldn’t be back until Thanksgiving. Our days were already changed without him.

While Jackson thought about what to say, I answered my own question. I wasn’t happier than I’d been. That wasn’t it at all. What we’d done by inviting Jackson to live with us wasn’t about me or Tom or Julie being good people or even feeling like good people. Jackson wasn’t there to upend our lives so we could break the spell we were under. 

This was about Jackson, pure and simple. Whatever might come of his time with us in Ashland, he would always remember it. That was enough for me.

“I miss Grandma,” Jackson answered. “But I like it here. It’s like a whole new life.” 

“I’m so glad, Jackson. It is a new life, isn’t it?”