On Friday morning I sent Amelia another text asking if she’d like me to babysit Natalie. I received no response. That evening, I turned on my computer and clicked through some photos of the Straubs. I went back to the day that I first met them at Natalie’s birthday party. I remembered feeling Amelia’s attention like the sun. Her gaze could warm, brighten, and heal me. I craved it. I felt a physical need for her presence, and without it, my body was responding with symptoms of withdrawal. I’d had headaches off and on all week, along with shaky hands, a significant handicap in my profession. I’d canceled two jobs, and the quality of my work was clearly suffering.

I turned toward photoshopping as a means of relief from the vast emptiness in front of me. I opened the folder labeled Straub, Alternates. By now it held more images than all my other private folders combined. I started with a captivating photo of Amelia in profile, wearing dark glasses and a leather jacket. She was holding her arm up in the air, waving to someone. I layered that image onto an exterior shot of Court Street in Cobble Hill, as well as an image of myself coming from the opposite direction. We were meeting up for a shopping excursion.

I focused on the image of Amelia waving to me, allowing my eyes to rest on the picture while breathing deeply. In a few minutes, I felt better.

I created another photo of us drinking cocktails at Buttermilk Channel. Amelia was touching my hand. Her welcoming expression in each image mirrored the way she looked the first time I’d met her. I would never forget that day. No one had ever recognized me so fully.

Lastly I created a photo of the two of us running across the Brooklyn Bridge. I felt it was a shame that the event hadn’t been recorded at all. But it was easy to layer each of us onto the bridge. From a distance, the shot had more to do with the backdrop than seeing our faces, but our body language suggested an animated conversation.

I returned to the photo of us on Court Street. I replaced my own image with a version of myself looking seven months pregnant. Amelia was beside herself with joy.

In these photos, I could see Amelia’s affection right in front of my eyes. Not only could I see it, I could feel my body respond, a gradual relaxing of my muscles, a sensation of expansion. The hollow part of my stomach was filled in. The sharp pain in my gut gave way to a feeling of warmth and ease.