“Maybe you feel neglected and you assume that Jasper feels neglected too. But I assure you he doesn’t.” An image of Jasper locked in a closet played over in my mind. An image of Jasper’s nose bleeding and his wrist broken. My little boy. It was my job to protect him. I wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Jasper.

“You’ve abandoned him,” she said. Natalie’s opinion of me was slipping. I would have to work hard to regain her trust.

I adjusted the pillow behind my back again. “I’m doing what’s best for him.”

She returned the picture to the end table and stepped away from it, like it was poison. “You’re a liar.”

“My ex-husband remarried. Jasper has a stepmother and a father in California.” I stood and reached out to take her hand, but she pulled away. “I’m putting his interests first.” Tears filled my eyes. I’d always been skilled at crying on cue, when the situation called for it.

“But you’re his mom!”

“I send him a letter every day. I FaceTime with him once a week.”

“You told me you FaceTime every day.”

“It’s as often as possible.”

In my heart, I knew I was telling Natalie the emotional truth of the situation. I wasn’t certain who was responsible for Jasper’s injuries. Who was responsible for his scars. Was it me? Was it his stepmother? I forced myself to conjure the image of his stepmother. I used one of my clients, a well-dressed dermatologist, because it was the first one that came to me.

Natalie slumped onto my living room sofa in a despondent fashion. I noticed the chartreuse nail polish on her fingernails, a purposefully ugly color. She picked up my Canon DSLR that was resting on the coffee table and studied it in a distracted manner. Several minutes passed. I remained silent.

Finally she spoke. “It sucks to be young.” She removed the lens cap of the camera in her hand. “What are all the buttons and dials?”

She looked through the viewfinder.

“Photography is about light,” I said. “Different ways to control the amount of light you want to allow through. Most times you don’t have enough light. Occasionally you have too much light.”

“How do you give a photo more light?”

“Three camera settings: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.” I pointed to the adjustment for each, respectively.

“Can I take your picture?”

“Look through the viewfinder. Slowly squeeze the shutter until it fires.”

She pointed the camera toward me.

“You are beautiful,” she said.

It was true that I was beautiful. But I didn’t want to be more beautiful than Natalie. Rather, I didn’t want her to think I was more beautiful than she was.

She handed the camera back to me and I looked at the photo of myself.

“It’s a little dark,” I said. “Turn the shutter speed to sixty.”