A Small but Perfect Happiness

Thunderstorm photo by Thomas Bresson; photo of young woman by martinak

The photos arrived at all hours, nearly always catching Sandra by surprise. She might be sorting through her mother's things when the phone burbled with another text, or trying to weed the riotous mint from her myrtle beds, or dozing in defeat on the sunroom daybed, the afternoon having gotten away from her. Without her mother in the house it was often too quiet, but these were not interruptions she welcomed. Vrrrt, the intrusive little messenger would trill, and she'd know that another photo was waiting, or three, or ten, or even a bit of rocky video filmed as the sender weaved down cobbled lanes or stepped over clods in vineyard rows.

Often enough the photos were of her son's Italian girlfriend, Francesca, posed against some achingly pretty Tuscan backdrop—a vineyard fence artfully tangled with grapes, or the whitewashed wall of a rustic trattoria, or, more distressingly, their disorderly bed under the green-shuttered window that opened onto hills terraced with cypress trees. Nearly always there was a glass of wine tucked into the scene. The girl was photogenic and winsome and an irresistible subject, without a doubt. But the intimacy of the photos embarrassed Sandra. It was obvious that the girl was posing for her American boyfriend—certainly not for his mother—and there was almost always a hint of arousal about her, of sex just concluded or sex soon to commence. In one series the girl's comfortable breasts were plainly visible through her cotton top, their areolae small and dark as pennies, her lips parted over perfect teeth in a smile that could only be meant for a lover. These pictures could make them a lot of money, Sandra had thought as she scrolled through them, money they could use right about now. Then she'd felt mercenary and low for thinking it. What a sour reaction—it said something about her, this practical reflex, hinting at a Sandra she didn't recognize. For an hour she'd felt ugly and small and was glad there was no one around to witness it.

The photos kept coming, relentless as the August heat. She wanted them to stop. They were nothing more than lovely photos of a lovely girl, but still. What business did Curt have sharing them with his sixty-year-old mother back in the Chicago suburbs? Did he realize how many years it had been since a man had looked at her with such desire? (He was twenty-two; the question was hardly worth asking.) Besides, if there was something in his desire for this girl that wounded his mother, it certainly wasn't any of his business. With a sort of brio she'd text back, What a lovely girl! or She's a keeper, Curt, as much to prove something to herself as to cheer him on. What kind of mother wouldn't want her son to share his joy? But this, of course, only encouraged him to send more images of his lover, goaded on by her seeming enthusiasm.

Sometimes a picture would come and Sandra would toss the phone onto the couch or into the grass as if it were suddenly electrified. She loved Curt, but it didn't mean she needed to look at women through his eyes, to drink them in as a young man would. She'd rather not know the details of how young men thought. Sometimes she switched the phone off just to have a break from the stream of images and texts, knowing that when she switched it on again it would catch up within seconds, the pulse of Curt's impressions blasting down the line from across the Atlantic, insistent as his desire.

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It wasn't that she disliked Francesca, not at all. In fact, Sandra liked her very much. When she and Curt had passed through Chicago in March, en route to Florence, she'd been charming, an attentive, well-bred girl who...