Chapter 3 - Fixing the Evidence
Carla showed up the next morning with Daisy, three suitcases, and a garment bag longer than Eli is tall.
She stared into my packed trunk like I'd insulted her. "Where exactly am I supposed to put this?"
"Fold it."
"It's silk, Diane."
"Then it probably shouldn't be going to the beach."
Josie came outside in shorts and an open cover-up. Carla's eyes went straight to her legs.
"Well. Somebody's feeling brave today."
Josie stopped next to me. "I'm wearing a swimsuit under this."
"I can see that."
"Mom," Daisy said under her breath.
Carla waved her off. "I'm complimenting her. That's confidence."
"No," I said. "You're making her explain herself before we've even backed out of the driveway."
Carla's mouth went thin.
Eli raised his camera. "Should I get a picture of everybody fighting next to the luggage?"
"Get in the car," I told him. Then I looked at my sister. "You too. And leave Josie alone."
Our first morning on the coast, Josie stood at the edge of the sand with the knot on her cover-up pulled tight.
"Want me to walk down with you?" I asked.
"No." Her fingers stayed on the knot. "I have to do this before I talk myself out of it."
She untied it and let it drop.
Two teenagers looked over, then kept walking to the water.
Josie blinked. "That's it?"
"That's it."
Eli came running backward through the sand, kicking up spray. "Last one in carries Aunt Carla's giant bag the whole week!"
She laughed and took off after him.
My dad waved us in for a picture. Carla lifted her phone.
"Josie, get behind Daisy so everybody fits."
I looked at the wide-open stretch of sand next to me. "She fits right here."
I pulled Josie in against my side.
Carla took the shot without arguing. But I watched her jaw tighten.
At an outdoor market that afternoon, Josie tried on a wide straw hat.
"You look like you're famous," Daisy said, and Carla started photographing the two of them.
"Josie, tilt the hat down."
"Why?"
"The light's hitting you wrong."
Eli's camera clicked before Josie moved an inch.
Later I walked up behind Carla near a fruit stand and saw her thumb dragging across her screen.
She pulled one edge of the photo inward. Josie's face slid out of the frame. She dragged it further, and most of Josie went with it.
When she stopped, Daisy stood alone in the middle of the shot. All that was left of my daughter was a curve of one shoulder.
"Why did you crop Josie out?"
Carla didn't look up. "I didn't."
"Her whole face is gone."
"I fixed the composition."
"You deleted her."
"It's one photo, Diane. Don't make it a whole thing."
She dropped the phone in her bag and walked toward the cheese samples.
That night Josie came down to dinner in long pants and one of my old sweatshirts, in eighty-degree heat.
"Aren't you roasting?"
"I'm fine." She opened the fridge and stood in the cold air.
"You wore less than this all day."
"That was before Aunt Carla spent an hour at the market fixing the evidence."
I went still. "What evidence?"
She kept her eyes on the shelves. "I saw her crop me out. Again."
"I talked to her about it, Josie."
She gave a tired little laugh. "That won't matter."
"It matters to me."
"She always does it, Mom."
My stomach dropped. "What do you mean, always?"
"She moves me to the back. She only picks the pictures where I'm covered up. And when she can't do either one, she cuts me out afterward." Josie shut the fridge. "I stopped asking her to send me photos a long time ago."
"How long has this been happening?"
"Long enough that I quit asking." She looked at me, and there was no anger in it, which was worse. "I figured you knew. How could you not know?"
May you like
She went upstairs before I could come up with an answer.
I stood alone in that rented kitchen and finally let myself line it all up — every holiday, every birthday, Carla's hand on Josie's shoulder steering her backward, Carla flicking past picture after picture saying "not that one." I'd seen every piece of it. I'd just never made myself put the pieces together.
