Chapter 46 - A Photograph With Three Chairs
Dorothy sent Adrian a photograph from Leo's classroom: three empty chairs arranged beneath a paper banner that said FAMILY DAY. Leo had drawn a picture of himself, his mother, and what looked like a giant green dinosaur.
“He put a dinosaur where I expected to see you,” Adrian told me.
“Maybe he likes dinosaurs.”
“He does. But there are three chairs.”
I waited.
“I asked who should sit in them,” Adrian continued. “He said Dorothy, me, and the dinosaur.”
The story made me laugh before I could help myself. Adrian sounded wounded, then almost amused.
“That's progress,” I said. “He imagined you in the room.”
Afterward I wondered what kind of picture my own child would draw one day. A father, a mother, a building full of lawyers? Or simply whatever strange creature made a good story that week?
May you like
My hand drifted to my stomach. For months I had pictured parenting as a legal arrangement to survive. Now I could imagine chairs at a school event and crayons broken in half.
I didn't tell Adrian about that thought. Some futures deserved to grow in private before anyone began drafting terms around them.
