Angle of Incidence

Chapter One

~Angle of Incidence~

The angle at which light strikes a surface, measured from a line perpendicular to the surface (called “normal”).

If professional photographer, Gwen Perry, had used time lapse photography to show how her picture-perfect life had come crashing down around her, in the blink of an eye, here’s where she would have started:

PREVIEW SHOT: A neighborhood café in a Northern Virginia suburb nine months ago. Gwen was having lunch with her friend, Melissa, sitting outside because of the moderate temperatures and cotton candy clouds, discussing the marriage troubles of another one of their long-ago roommates.

“You know,” Gwen said, patting her three-month-pregnant bump. Click. She would capture this image, the smug smile on her face, the confident rub of her hand across her expanding mid-section. “The problem is they barely knew each other when they got married. And then BAM,” she snapped her fingers for emphasis. “They started a family right away.” Melissa nodded, her mouth full of chicken salad, and Gwen continued before her friend could swallow and interject her own thoughts into the middle of Gwen’s summation.

“I mean, Rob and I dated for three years before we got married, and then we waited another three before we even started trying to have kids.” She moved the salad around the plate with her fork. Despite feeling better, her healthy food choices never totally satisfied. The guy at the table next to them had a burger and fries. Steak fries, Gwen’s favorite.

“We really knew each other,” she continued. “And let me tell you…” Gwen leaned in close to the table. This she remembered vividly. “…After trying to conceive for over a year with no luck, and then spending two years going through every procedure under the sun, there isn’t a damn thing we don’t know about each other.”

Click. She’d stop there, just after she’d shared those jewels of wisdom, and use Photoshop to arrange her words in the air, maybe have the sentence dance around her head and then loop around her neck like a noose. She’d take a few shots of Melissa, her eyes wide with shock when Gwen tossed the truth out as if everyone had known she and Rob had had trouble conceiving. She could admit to not being perfect when, in the long run, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted.

Then she’d skip forward three months to the day it happened, to the seemingly mundane occurrence that led to the event that changed her life forever.

BEGINNING OF THE END SHOT: Gwen’s northern Virginia neighborhood. Click. She’d start outside, take a series of pictures from the corner of the street to her driveway. When she aligned the pictures together, they would show off her neighborhood’s affluence, the two-story brick homes with two-and-three-car garages and sidewalks on both sides of the street. Gwen and Rob’s detached garage had a little covered walkway. Gwen had planted creeping roses along the columns, and they were in full bloom.

Gwen sat at the desk in her home office. She’d had a photo shoot that morning in her studio in the basement, some couple’s newborn, and she’d started Photoshopping the images. She remembered playing with the color tones and backgrounds, creating some neat effects most of her conservative clients wouldn’t appreciate. But with this particular couple, she’d gotten a vibe from them that they might like something a little different, a little edgy. Gwen was totally immersed in editing the photos of the baby. He’d been cute, and she remembered wondering for the thousandth time what her baby would look like. She hoped he or she would have Rob’s full lips and her hair. Rob’s black hair was as dark when he was born as it was today. Gwen’s light blonde hair had darkened with pregnancy, another unexpected side effect, but she still imagined their baby as a blonde. He or she would probably have brown eyes like her and Rob, but she hoped for green. Green would be nice no matter what the hair color.

When she heard the doorbell ring, she figured it was just another delivery. Running her business out of her home meant she was on a first-name basis with the UPS man, and her exercise routine consisted of jogging up and down the stairs twenty times a day. Gwen considered it good training for chasing after a toddler.

But when she opened the door, it wasn’t Hugh, the regular driver.

It wasn’t a UPS worker at all.

Standing under their covered porch was a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen; it was hard to be sure. He seemed like one of those kids who’d just gone through puberty with his big feet and oddly disproportioned facial features. He ran a hand through his curling mass of brown hair and cleared his throat, but didn’t say a word.

“Can I help you?” Gwen asked. Nothing about the boy looked familiar. She hadn’t seen him riding his bike through the neighborhood, learning to drive behind the wheel of a car with his nervous parents in the passenger seat, or boarding and unloading the high school bus every day.

“Mrs. Perry?” In just those two words, his voice cracked. He shuffled his feet and waited.

Gwen nodded, and then noticed the woman who stood below him at the bottom of the steps. She wasn’t on the porch, but just at the base of the stairs, as if hesitant to come any closer. She remembered thinking how odd it was, the way she stood there watching, a strained look on her pretty face, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Click. Gwen would take full body shots and close-ups of all three of their faces: hers, the boy’s, and his mother’s. When she set the pictures together, she’d alternate big and small shots of their faces and full length images. The body language she could have captured on film would’ve been so powerful.

“My name is Brandon. Brandon Barone?” That was all he said, just his name, as if the mention of it would light a bulb in her brain. But nothing sparked Gwen’s memory, not his looks, his sweet demeanor, or the sound of his name.

“Hello, Brandon Barone.”

She should have slammed the door in his face. She should have run down the porch steps and slapped the woman who watched the scene play out in front of her with the detachment of a moviegoer.

But she did neither.

Gwen let the wolves in the door.

Chapter Two

~Bleed~

A photographic print that extends to the edges of the paper and has no visible border or defined margin.

The woman walked up the stairs of Gwen’s porch and held out her hand. “Mrs. Perry, I’m Deanna Barone. We spoke on the phone a few days ago about a photo shoot.”

“Oh, of course.” Gwen shook her head as if to clear her foggy brain. She recalled the odd phone call, the stilted conversation where she’d said she’d gotten Gwen’s name from the friend of a friend, but couldn’t remember who. Her questions hadn’t been the usual, concerning her sitting fee and packages, but veered more toward her level of experience and background. Pregnancy had made Gwen very scattered, but after the phone call, she never expected to hear from Deanna Barone again. “I don’t usually have people show up at my door without an appointment.”

Deanna’s cheeks reddened, and from the downward tilt of her lips, it seemed to come more from anger than embarrassment. “I realize this is a bit intrusive, but we were in the neighborhood, and I thought we’d take a chance and see if you had a moment to show us your studio and some of your work.”

Gwen had become very good at hiding her irritation with clients, or potential clients. The stories passed along at conferences and classes amongst portrait photographers about clients’ audacity were legendary and usually resulted in aching sides and gaping mouths. She’d certainly endured worse than an annoying intrusion into her day.

“Well, since you’re here…” Gwen stepped back from the door and waited for them to enter. The mail sat scattered on the foyer table and the dry cleaning bag, filled to splitting, rested near the door. She always asked clients to use the basement entrance so she and Rob could live in their house instead of using it as a backdrop.

The boy walked immediately inside and bent over the framed black-and-white shot of her and Rob on their wedding day that sat next to the mail. The picture had long been a favorite of Gwen’s—the two of them, their hands linked, running through bubbles on the way to the waiting limo. If she ever doubted his love for her, all she had to do was look at that picture and see the expression on Rob’s face as he turned his head to smile at Gwen. She’d been enchanted with his smile from the moment they’d met.

Brandon examined the picture until his mother ran a hand down his back and pulled him toward Gwen with a quick shake of her head. It wasn’t until they were both together side-by-side that Gwen could see the resemblance: the hair, his curling and unruly, hers lighter blonde tamed into pretty waves over her shoulders. They both had blue eyes. His were darker, what some would call midnight; hers lighter, like a cloudless spring sky. Gwen already pictured the photos she would take, the lighting she would use to bring out both of their eyes.

Deanna Barone must have been a child when she’d had her son because the woman who stood in front of Gwen wearing a pencil skirt and fitted button-up top couldn’t have been much older than her own thirty years. And as Gwen’s body exploded with pregnancy, especially in the last few weeks, she envied Deanna’s slender frame. At five-eight, Gwen had never been called petite, but until recently she’d been thin. She would be again, someday…

“My studio is down here.” She tried to lead them to the basement stairs before their aging lab, Truman, woke up and bounded in to greet them. When Gwen turned around, Brandon had walked into the living room despite his mother’s hushed whisper for him not to. He touched his hand reverently to the upright piano.

“Steinway,” he murmured. “It’s gorgeous.” He lifted the fallboard and stared at the keys the way she imagined a boy his age would stare at a beautiful girl. “How old?”

“Early Victorian. Our best guess is 1860s.”

“Do you play?” He carefully tucked the stray tress in place and turned to face Gwen.

“Well, not really,” Gwen explained. “My husband plays really well, but according to his mother, he has the gift without the passion. She says he lacks the musician’s soul.” Gwen rubbed her belly. “She has high hopes for this one because she swears it skips a generation.”

Brandon’s smile beamed and Gwen grinned in return. But when she glanced at Deanna, the woman seemed pale and uncomfortable. “Shall we go down to the studio?” Gwen asked.

She felt more at ease in the basement and the jargon of her profession came forth as if she were on autopilot. She’d framed some of her favorite photographs on the walls, depicting the range of options available for purchase. She worked mostly in her studio, but when clients wanted outdoor shots, there was a park nearby with a pond and a rock bridge. In the spring, the park’s flowers exploded with color that could only compare to the foliage of the bordering trees in the fall. One of Gwen’s outdoor pictures seemed to have caught Deanna’s eye.

“Is this you?” she asked.

“My sister and her three children. They were visiting from Atlanta during the one week every year the cherry blossoms are in bloom.”

“You favor her.” She touched a finger to her sister Beth’s image. “But you’re prettier.”

Gwen smiled, but she doubted it hid her irritation at Deanna’s glib remark. How many times had she cringed at being referred to as the “pretty Larson girl?” Her sister, Beth, with her generous soul and easy smile, won the coveted “nice Larson girl” title, while Jill, the baby, gloried in her status as the “smart Larson girl.” She’d always wanted to insist that she too was nice and smart, especially to her stepmother, who constantly dismissed Gwen as a bubble-brained bimbo.

“Your sister should let her hair grow out some.” She looked at Gwen and wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never understood why women want to have boy hair.”

Gwen wanted them out of her house because, other than her ridiculously rude remark at the shot of Beth and her kids, neither one of them seemed remotely interested in her services.

“Her hair was growing back in from chemo. She had breast cancer.”

Deanna dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes my brain can’t keep up with my mouth.”

“If you have any questions or want to see a larger representation of my work, you can always check my website, as I told you on the phone.” Gwen reached for a card from her desk where the project she’d abandoned when the doorbell rang sat begging for her return. “It’s all right here.”

Deanna pocketed the card without looking at it. “Is all of your work digital?” She rounded Gwen’s camera and the backdrop she’d used for the newborn.

“Yes, it’s industry standard.”

“I thought maybe with your prices, you’d use film.”

So she had researched Gwen’s sitting fee. “Digital is more forgiving and allows both the photographer and the client more flexibility in creating the desired end result.” They had wandered over to the table she had used for the baby and Gwen asked them both to turn and look at her. When they did, she snapped a quick shot. “See.” She beckoned Deanna behind the camera to the digital display where she’d captured their surprise at being photographed. “The lighting is wrong and Brandon’s face is in shadows, but with digital photography, that doesn’t matter. Corrections are made quickly and easily. I shot a young woman around Brandon’s age with terrible acne. You’d never know it from the pictures.”

“Seems like lying to me.” Brandon hadn’t spoken since they’d come downstairs, and the deep timbre of his voice startled Gwen.

“If you were a fifteen-year-old girl in the throes of puberty, you’d appreciate it, trust me.”

Deanna stepped up to Brandon and smiled. “Well, that about does it then. We’ll get out of your hair.”

They started walking toward the stairs. Gwen had just opened her mouth to direct them to the basement door when it felt like the baby kicked her uterus wearing cowboy boots. She doubled over with pain and gasped, clutching the wall for support. She’d been having an occasional twinge of…something for a while now, in addition to the soft fluttering of a foot or knee. This was the most severe pain she’d experienced to date.

Gwen felt Deanna’s hand on her arm, helping her stand and then moving with her to the desk chair. After a moment, the pain subsided to a dull ache. Gwen looked up and tried to smile, despite her worry and embarrassment.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied so they’d leave. Something felt wrong, and she wanted to call the doctor and describe the feeling while it was fresh in her mind. “If you don’t mind showing yourselves out, I’d like to call the doctor just to make sure.”

“Of course,” Deanna said, her expression filled with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay to be alone?”

Gwen nodded and reached for the phone. Her eye caught the time on her computer. “My husband should be home any minute.” Lies flew off her tongue with unusual ease. The only time Rob had been home by four-thirty was when a mysterious package had been found near his office building. She’d do or say whatever she felt necessary to get them to go.

Deanna and her son disappeared a moment later, gone and completely forgotten because Gwen looked down and saw a bright red bloodstain on her pants. And when her doctor told her in an eerily composed voice to stay calm, but to get to the hospital as soon as she could, she didn’t think of anything but her unborn child.

* * *

“Gwendolyn Perry?” Rob asked the nurse at the desk. “I’m her husband.” She pointed down the hall and directed him to a surgical waiting room. “Surgery?” he asked. “I want to see Dr. Hagan.”

“Rob?”

He turned at the sound of Gwen’s doctor’s voice and was surprised to see him in scrubs, his usual jovial expression gone. “Dr. Hagan. What’s going on? Where’s Gwen?”

“They’re prepping her for surgery now.” He reached into the nurses’ area and grabbed a clipboard from her hand. He grasped Rob’s arm and led him away from the desk and into an empty waiting room. A sitcom played on the television and the laugh track mocked the seriousness of what the doctor tried to quickly explain. “Gwen’s bleeding heavily. After an examination and an ultrasound, it appears she’s had a placental abruption.”

Rob shook his head. Bleeding? “What’s a placental abruption?”

“It’s a rare condition where the placenta detaches from the uterine wall.”

“Can you reattach it?”

“No, it’s not possible. Mild abruptions can be monitored and managed, but Gwen’s abruption isn’t minor. At this point, we have to get the baby out or we could lose them both.”

The panic he’d shoved to the background as he’d focused on getting to the hospital leapt forward like a sprinter at the sound of the start gun. Lose them both? He’d talked to Gwen at lunch and she’d sounded fine. “It’s too early.”

“It’s the only option. I’m going to need you to sign some papers while we get her into surgery.” He clasped his hand to Rob’s arm and squeezed, his mouth in a tight line.

Rob stared at the single typewritten sheet and couldn’t process what he should do with the form. The doctor pointed his finger to a line at the bottom and Rob scratched his name with the pen he’d handed him. “Can I see her?”

“Just for a moment. We’ve already given her a sedative, so she’ll probably be pretty out of it.”

Rob followed Dr. Hagan down the hallway and through a huge pair of double doors that opened when he hit a button on the wall. Dr. Hagan handed a nurse the clipboard and pointed to an alcove of curtains.

“She’s behind the second curtain on the right. I’m going to scrub,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll send one of the nurses out to fill you in as soon as I can.”

Rob pushed back the curtain, and that’s when he realized the whimpering sound he’d heard since he’d entered the hall was coming from his wife. She lay on a stretcher, tears streaming down her swollen face. Gwen, who had the loudest, bawdiest laugh he’d ever heard, cried softer than anyone he’d ever met. It had always broken his heart to hear it, on the rare occasion she gave in to sadness. It crushed him to see her now, trying so hard not to lose control. She hated losing control.

He leaned over her. “Gwen?”

At the sound of her name, her head came off the pillow in slow motion. She reached her hand out for his and gripped it like a vise. “Rob, the baby….” She sobbed so hard he could barely tell what she said.

“Shhhh. Dr. Hagan is going to do everything he can. You need to stay positive.” Her head fell back to the pillow as the medicine pulled her under. The nurse tapped him on the shoulder.

“We need to get her to surgery, Mr. Perry. I’ll take you to the waiting area.”

He looked down at Gwen, her pretty face slack with sleep. He kissed her on her cheek, tasting salt from her tears. After the nurse deposited him in waiting area down the hall, Rob realized he’d begun to cry. How the hell could this have happened?