Proof of the work being done

I am not going to describe what the photo looks like. I screenshotted it once and that is already one time too many for that image to be on a device. I know what my own neck looks like bent over a pin cushion in good light. I do not need his angle.

He thinks he has me. That is the thing my brain will not let go. He took a picture of me while I was working — pinning a hem in the back bedroom because that is where her curtains hung right, because she asked me to fix them while I was there, because I am the woman who does the work where the work is — and now the photo is a sentence I did not write. Proof of the work being done. I have been turning that phrase over since ten in the morning and I still cannot make it mean anything except what he means.

I did not text him back. I sat at the kitchen table and did not move for six minutes. I know because the microwave clock counts in a way I hate.

The laundromat at noon. The man on the corner in the black coat. I have never seen him before today. The neighbor I have never met asked, in front of two customers holding their detergent, is he with you? and I had to say no. I am going to carry the shape of that word in my mouth for a long time.

Jolene kept a copy. A second manila envelope. I do not know what is in it and I do not want to know until seven tomorrow at the bodega. I am grateful in a way that makes me angry at myself. I built this book alone. I do not want to be the woman who needed the one person she trusts with this. I do not want to need her.