Love, Dad

Начало книги

Jamie was still working at midnight, hanging the matted enlargements on every available inch of wall space, using double-faced Scotch tape for the plaster surfaces and pushpins for the old wooden beams. His daughter had gone to bed at ten-thirty, serene in the knowledge that the birthday tradition would be honored yet another time — but he alone knew that this year the shared secret would carry with it a true surprise.

He had started putting up his photographs of her when she was a year old and couldn’t possibly have understood that all those black-and-white enlargements on the walls were pictures of herself, taken over the past year. See the baby, Lissie? Who’s the pretty baby? Holding her in his arms, her chubby little hand reaching out, one stubby forefinger touching the nose of the baby on the wall. Yes, darling, that’s you, darling. But not understanding at all. The pictures hadn’t even been matted that first year; there simply hadn’t been enough extra cash to buy mats for the four dozen enlargements he’d hung all over the living room. That was in 1952, a year before he’d broken through with the photographic essay for Life.

Читать дальше →