of Afghanistan is the thing I love most about you. But sometimes—damn it, sometimes I do hate that part. I don’t want to, but I do.”
His eyes. So so blue.
She rubbed her chest over her heart. And she felt it like slow motion—his arms reaching for her, their bodies falling to the soft mattress, the safe feeling of his weight on her.
12
They had only hours before he left. With Howell’s fundraiser on Saturday, Cass didn’t feel guilty taking the day off. She hadn’t been to his studio in ages, but it looked no different than it had on their second date. Still no sticky notes, no mugs. A black wire desk that could just fold up and disappear. Nothing except the heft and size of the printer to indicate the permanent presence of anyone.
Westside Atlanta had started as the meat-packing district. Afterward, the warehouses lay empty for years. Ethan’s studio, across from their apartment building, was in the old White Provision building, on the third floor that was originally one cavernous empty space. Renovations had turned the floor into three studios, each with a huge window of light.
Ethan turned to a white plastic bin on a card table and removed the lid. The top photo was of Majeed, who had given Ethan the wheelbarrow bench. Her eyes always went first to the glassy sore on his dusty fingers, then to the torn threads of the red vest he was holding. His fifteen-year-old son had been wearing it when he was shot in his own house. He’d wanted to be a teacher.
“I’m going to be okay,” Ethan said, touching her elbow and drawing her to him, letting the lid fall to the cement floor. “I’m going to come back to you.”
But she thought of her father anyway.
As he collected what he would need for his trip, she wandered. On a small table by the printer were three 8½ by 11 photographs. The top one was of Baquir, Ethan’s fixer, who Cass liked to imagine magically knew what needed fixing. Baquir was slight, but tall, like Ethan. This photo, of Baquir carrying a floor lamp across a city street, was one of Ethan’s famous Portraits of Afghanistan. If she looked closely, the side of Baquir’s mouth had just the faintest upturn. Cass smiled. That’s why this photo was here. Ethan loved Baquir’s sense of humor, which was usually only present at the end of the day when the two of them were alone, but Ethan had caught it in the middle of the day in the middle of the street. In the next photo, also one she’d seen before, Setara was the only woman in a blurry sea of men. And, God, those eyes. This woman knew who she was and what she wanted. And she looked as if she might know who Cass was and what she wanted, too. In every photo, Setara stared straight at the camera, straight at Ethan. Cass turned and looked for him—on his computer—and she went back to the photo. Those famous sparkling amber eyes but also something else. These were the eyes of someone attuned to the world, someone who saw things and didn’t look away, someone who was in it—for better or worse. Cass scanned the photo—eyebrows, scarf, hair—but nothing fragile. Except Cass felt sure there must be and wondered what it was she couldn’t see. She put the photo of Setara down and placed the one of Baquir on top of it.
The last photo in the stack. An eerie blue shape, a yellow blanket across a wheelbarrow, a child bending to the ground. She picked it up and took it over to Ethan. “I’ve never seen this one.”
“It’s new, from this last trip.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “Baquir and I came across this woman and child in an alleyway. The mother was sitting on some cement blocks and covered, head to toe, in a burka. It rarely happens, but she asked me to take her photo.”
Cass looked down at his black curls, his olive skin, the creases across his forehead, his ears that stuck out, the ocean of caring he was capable of.
“Uploading the photo,” he said. “I didn’t notice anything unusual. But when I printed it, the woman looked as if she were covered in a shroud, as if she were dead. I had to sit down. I knew she was alive underneath.”
13
Rounds of cool air from the open French doors pelted her body. No Ethan in the other chair. She had fallen asleep and stood too fast. In her socked feet, she slid down the hallway, bumping over the threshold to their bedroom, grabbing the doorframe to stop herself. Ethan, in his black sweater, with his back to her and black bags at his feet, was packing. Cameras marked with jagged red tape, lenses, cables, and countless other black pieces, all at right angles covering their old quilt. Sleeping during the day made her woozy, and she put her hands to her forehead.
He looked up. “You okay?”
Their feet had been together, on the ottoman between them. “You were gone.”
“Not gone. Packing.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up? I always watch you pack.”
“Because you always watch me pack.”
But she needed to watch him place things now in this room into those bags that would be with him over there. She perched on the arm of the easy chair.
“Why is there red tape on your cameras?”
“This last trip I picked up the wrong one—first time. Do you have any books for me to take to Setara?”
