Read Chapter 35: Aftermath: The Morning After

The typewriter clattered in the near-silence of the flat, the only other sound the low hiss of rain against the window. Mara’s fingers moved with a certainty she hadn’t felt in weeks. She’d rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the machine, the good bond paper she’d been saving for something that mattered.

This mattered.

Dear Editor, she typed, then stopped. No. She pressed the lever, rolled the paper up a notch, and started again.

The photograph accompanying this submission was taken by Mara Ellis. Not Marianne. Not a house name for a man who wanted a softer signature. Mara Ellis, Photographer. That was the whole point.

She pulled the sheet free, held it to the light coming through the rain-streaked glass. The letters were sharp, clean, hers. She set it in the stack of outgoing mail on the corner of her desk, next to the envelope addressed to a small gallery in Soho that had expressed interest in a solo show. She’d signed that one the same way.

Her coffee was cold. She drank it anyway.

The door to the bedroom creaked open and Robbie appeared, rumpled and barefoot, a crease from the pillow on his cheek. He squinted at the light. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She motioned to the stack. “Thought I’d make myself official. Before the world decided for me.”

He walked over, picked up the top letter, scanned it. He read the signature twice. Then he set it down carefully, the way he handled her prints, like they were made of glass.

“Mara Ellis, Photographer,” he said. “I like that.”

“I like that too.” She smiled, small and real. “It’s who I’ve been all along. Just took a court case to remember.”

He leaned on the desk beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. “How do you feel? Now that it’s morning.”

She thought about it. The shouting was over. The verdict was written down in some clerk’s ledger, a fact now, something other people could point to. But in here, in the quiet of her flat with the rain outside and the typewriter still warm, it felt less like a victory and more like a beginning.

“Like I’ve been holding my breath,” she said. “And someone finally told me I’m allowed to exhale.”

Robbie nodded slowly. He reached out, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His hand lingered at her jaw. “You fought them. On your own. You stood up in that courtroom and named what you do, and you didn’t blink.”

“I blinked,” she said. “You just didn’t see it.”

“I saw everything.” He said it simply, without heat. “I’ve seen you from the first time you pointed that camera at me. That’s what scares me.”

She turned her face into his palm. Touched her lips to his wrist. “Don’t be scared. Not this morning.”

They stood there for a long moment, the typewriter and the rain and the stack of envelopes the only witnesses. Then Robbie’s stomach growled, loud in the quiet, and Mara laughed.

“Right,” she said. “Breakfast. I think there’s bread. Maybe eggs if the shop was open before I got back.”

“You cooked?”

“I can cook,” she said. “I just usually choose not to.”

He followed her into the cramped kitchen, leaned against the doorframe while she found the pan and the eggs. She broke them into the butter and watched the edges turn white. It felt like the most ordinary thing in the world, and also like the most extraordinary.

“So what happens now?” she asked, her back to him. “With the band. The label. After all that.”

“Whitfield’s already called a meeting for Monday. New rider on the contract. Image rights, they’re calling it. Any photograph of the band used for official purposes, we get consulted. Approved before it goes anywhere.” He paused. “Dex will have a fit.”

“Dex can have a fit,” Mara said. “He’s had plenty of practice.”

Robbie laughed, a real one, bright in the small room. Then the sound faded and the quiet came back.

“Mara.”

She turned. He was still leaning in the doorway, but something in his posture had changed. His arms were crossed now, but loose, not defensive. His eyes were on the floor, then came up to meet hers.

“They’ve booked the tour. It was already in motion before the trial. We leave in ten days.”

She set the spatula down. The eggs sizzled in the pan, then quieted.

“Where?”

“Everywhere. London first, then Europe, then the States, then Japan if the label gets their way. Six months. Maybe eight.” He held her gaze. “They’re sending us out to be a world band. And they’re paying for it, because the trial made them look like they were squeezing artists. So they’re overcompensating. Giving us everything we asked for, with a smile.”

“And the world tour is part of the making-nice?”

“Part of it.” He pushed off the doorframe, took a step into the kitchen, closer. “I want you to know I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t go looking for a way out of—”

“I know,” she said. “I know you didn’t.”

She turned back to the pan, slid the eggs onto two plates that had chips in them, handed him one. They ate standing up in the kitchen, the way she imagined people did in films about artists in lofts, except her loft was a two-room flat with a leak in the ceiling and a radiator that clanked.

“Eight months is a long time,” she said eventually.

“It is.”

“And what do you want me to do with that? Wait? Take pictures of you waving from airport tarmacs?”

He set his plate down on the counter. His jaw worked, like he was trying to find the right words and they kept getting away from him.

“I don’t want to hold you back,” he said. “And I don’t want you to hold me back either. That’s not what this is.”

“What is it, then?”

He came closer then, until there was no counter between them. He took her face in both hands, the way he had in the courtroom when the verdict came down, and she remembered how safe she’d felt, how solid.

“This is real,” he said. “You and me. That’s the thing I’m sure of. But the band is real too. And the work is real. And I’ve learned—God, I’ve learned this year—that love can turn into resentment if you make it the thing that stops you. And I won’t do that to you. I won’t make you smaller so I can feel bigger.”

“Robbie.”

“I’m not saying goodbye,” he said quickly. “I’m saying—I’m saying that I’m going to go be a successful musician, and you’re going to stay here and be a successful photographer, and when I come back, I want to find you even more yourself than you are now. I want to see the show at that gallery. I want to see your name in print, not some name they gave you. And I want to be proud of you from six thousand miles away.”

“And if I don’t want to wait?”

“Then don’t.” His hands dropped to her shoulders. “You don’t have to wait for me. If you find something, or someone, that makes you feel like this—full, like the picture’s in focus—you go toward it. That’s what I’m asking. Don’t dim yourself for my absence.”

Mara looked at him. The morning light through the kitchen window caught his face, made him softer around the edges. She thought about the first candid shot she’d ever taken of him, the one that started all of this. He’d been unguarded then, shocked to be seen. He was looking at her now the same way.

“That’s a very noble speech,” she said.

“I rehearsed it on the walk over. Didn’t want to muck it up.”

“You didn’t muck it up.”

They stood in the small kitchen, the rain still falling, the eggs gone cold on the plates. She reached up and touched his face, the line of his jaw, the place where he smiled.

“I’ll be here when you come back,” she said. “That’s not waiting. That’s choosing.”

He let out a breath he seemed to have been holding. He pulled her into his arms, held her tight against his chest, and she could feel his heart beating through his shirt, fast and strong.

“Ten days,” he said into her hair. “I’ve got ten days. I want to spend them with you.”

“Then spend them with me,” she said. “I’ve got a spare key. You can use the good side of the bed.”

He laughed, and the sound vibrated through her, warm and alive.

They stayed like that until the radiator clanked and the spell broke. Then they finished their cold eggs and she made more coffee, and they talked about nothing important: the neighbor’s cat, the leak in the ceiling, whether she’d ever learned to play any instrument (she had not). And when the morning got old and the light changed, they walked to the shop together, and she took his hand on the street corner, and no one looked twice.

Later, when he’d gone back to his own flat to pack the first of his bags, Mara sat down at the typewriter again. She pulled another fresh sheet of paper from the drawer. She typed her name at the top of the page, then stared at it.

Mara Ellis, Photographer.

She was still staring at it when the phone rang, half an hour later. She let it ring three times before she answered.

“Mara?” It was Dex. His voice was careful, bright, false. “I heard about the verdict. I wanted to say—I mean, it’s remarkable, what you did. A real feather in your cap.”

“Is there a point, Dex?”

“The label wants to offer you a retainer. Official this time. Ethical. Full control of your prints, credit in your own name. They’re willing to be generous.”

Mara looked at the sheet in the typewriter, at her name sitting there in black and white.

“Tell Whitfield I’ll think about it,” she said.

“That’s the spirit,” Dex said. “I knew you’d come around.”

She hung up. She didn’t tell him she’d already decided. She didn’t tell him the answer was no.

She pulled the sheet from the typewriter, folded it carefully, and put it in the drawer with the negatives that were hers and hers alone.

Then she picked up her camera, checked the film, and went to the window to photograph the rain.