Ten Years Behind His Lens

Ten years into my marriage, after five years as a stay-at-home mom, my husband, Ethan, and I barely spoke anymore. At dinner that evening, I tried talking to him once again. "Ethan, do you want to take Bella to the aquarium this Saturday?" "It'll be a great chance for me to take some photos of you two." He didn't even look up. Just as I was about to ask again, Bella looked around at the framed pictures displayed throughout the house and asked, puzzled: "Mommy, why aren't you in any of these pictures?" I said, "Because Mommy is the one taking them." She tilted her little head and thought for a second. "Then who takes pictures of Mommy?" My lips parted, but no sound came out. She pulled out our family album, flipped straight to the very last page, and added: "Daddy never takes pictures of you." Bella was only five. Her voice was still babyish, but every single word felt like a sharp pebble hitting me square in the chest. I gave her a bath, read her two bedtime stories, and tucked her into bed. When I walked back into the master bedroom, Ethan was propped against the headboard scrolling on his phone. He didn't spare me a single glance. In the past, I would have scrambled to come up with random topics. Like the funny thing that happened while grocery shopping today. Or why the neighbors had been arguing earlier. And then he would brush me off with a half-hearted "uh-huh," roll over, and pretend to fall asleep. Left with nothing else, I would stare at his back—or up at the ceiling—and cry in silence. Tonight, I didn't sit down on the bed. I grabbed a throw blanket and walked out to the living room. The couch in our living room was huge. When we bought it, Ethan had even teased: "You're not going to kick me out to sleep on this couch whenever you're mad, are you?" Only later did I realize he never even gave me the chance to fight with him. The moment a disagreement flared, he'd claim an urgent work crisis had popped up at the office and that he needed to handle it right away. Then he'd tell me to stay home and "cool down." I lay down on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling. My phone lit up. It was a text from my mom: Are you and Bella doing okay? I replied: Doing great. For ten whole years, whenever my mom asked how I was doing, my answer was always "doing great." Meanwhile, I used to send Ethan long, endless paragraphs. Reminding him to wear an extra jacket, or telling him not to forget his umbrella. He never replied to any of it. When I called, he wouldn't pick up. Worried that something terrible had happened to him, I once went to his firm looking for him. He just stared at me, coldly saying, "Can you stop acting crazy?" Everyone said I was too clingy, that maybe staying home as a housewife for so long had messed with my head. Even I had started to wonder if something was wrong with me. I had chased after Ethan for ten straight years, photographing him for ten entire years. How pathetically desperate could someone be? Yet tonight, that innocent question from Bella felt like someone had pressed a shutter right next to my ear. Click. Something froze forever in that instant. It wasn't heartbreak. It was the film of an old, lingering obsession finally being overexposed. I slept astonishingly well that night. No dreams. No tears. No waking up in the middle of the night to check if he'd texted back. The next morning, when the alarm went off, I actually blanked for a second. It turned out I could sleep this peacefully after all. It was a Monday. Ethan had an early morning meeting. Before, I would have dragged myself out of bed at five in the morning to prepare buttered toast, freshly brewed coffee, pastries, fried eggs, sausages, and more. Just hoping he might pick one of them for breakfast. Instead of just tossing out a hurried "thanks" and heading out the door to buy coffee at Starbucks. Today, I only made breakfast for Bella, then packed her water bottle for preschool. When Ethan stepped out of the bedroom, he glanced at us. He didn't say a word. He just opened the door and left. The sound of the door clicking shut sounded identical to the past three thousand-plus days. Yet for the very first time, I didn't run after him to say, "Drive safe." Bella looked up at me. "Mommy, you didn't say goodbye to Daddy today." I smiled, gently pinching her cheek. "Did you tell Daddy to drive safely?" She shook her head. "Daddy walks too fast." Yeah. He always walked too fast. I had spent ten years chasing him with a camera, yet all I ever managed to capture was his retreating back. In real life, I could never catch up to him either. I unlocked my phone and scrolled through my camera roll. The most recent photo was taken yesterday—Bella eating an apple. Scrolling back: Bella drawing, Bella at the park, Bella asleep. Scrolling further back: Ethan working overtime at his laptop, Ethan asleep on the couch, Ethan playing with Bella in the living room. Further back still: family gatherings, full group pictures I had taken. Everyone was in the frame. Everyone except me. Ten years. Over ten thousand photos. Not a single one of myself.Ethan and I went to college together. He was an architecture major; I was in photography. During an outdoor shoot, I accidentally captured his silhouette while he was sketching drafts. I thought he looked incredibly handsome when he was completely absorbed in his work, and I started keeping an eye on him. Eventually, I fell for him and began pursuing him relentlessly. Everyone in Ethan's class knew there was a girl crazy about him. Rain or shine, I'd buy him a cup of coffee before his classes started. When he stayed up late in the studio building models, I'd wait by the doors just to catch a glimpse of him. The year we graduated, he finally agreed to be with me. I cried in my dorm room for an hour that day. Tears of pure joy. Only much later did I slowly realize he hadn't agreed to date me because he loved me. He agreed because he felt no one would ever take better care of him than I did. I only learned this by accident from his mother. "Ethan has always been very rational, and girls always threw themselves at him." "When I pushed him to settle down and get married, he picked you." "I asked him why, and he said you were the best at looking after someone, so marrying you would be pretty nice." She said it so casually, yet it ripped away the fragile curtain hiding the truth of our marriage. During our first year of marriage, Ethan was quiet, but at least he would accompany me to galleries on weekends. If I said I wanted to check out a photography exhibit, he'd go, even if he complained it was too far away. The turning point came after Bella was born. During those first few months postpartum, I raised the baby completely alone. He had overtime, business trips, clients demanding revisions—there was always a convenient excuse for him not to be home. One night, completely breaking down while nursing, I called him. He said, "Doesn't Bella have you?" I asked if he could please come home earlier. He snapped, "Can you stop being like this? I'm exhausted out here too." From then on, he spent even less time at home. Whenever he did walk through the door, he went straight into the bedroom. That was the first time I felt what stood between us wasn't just a wooden door. It was light-years. Yet back then, I didn't stop. I convinced myself that as long as I kept trying, I would eventually make him fall in love with me. For ten whole years, I acted as his live-in maid. I faithfully used my camera to document his every move, every tiny change in our little home. Yet it seemed he had never once truly seen me. Back in college, I had the highest GPA in my department. My senior thesis project won top honors, and my professor recommended me for an assistant role at a prestigious photography magazine. I turned it down. Because Ethan signed an offer with an architecture firm in this city. I thought staying together was the only thing that truly mattered. Later, when Bella was born, I quit my job entirely to stay home with her. Ethan said, "It's fine if you stay home. Saves us the cost of hiring a nanny." That photography magazine eventually blew up, winning several major industry awards. Whenever their features randomly popped up on my Instagram feed, I would pause and stare at the screen for a long time. Then I'd lock my phone and go back to washing baby bottles.The shift happened quietly, piece by piece. During the first week after I stopped chasing Ethan with my camera, I felt out of place. My hands would instinctively reach for the camera bag, wanting to capture him before he stepped out the door. Then I'd remember—I hadn't picked up the camera. No photos meant I didn't have to wait around for him to come home and look at them. It was a bizarre sensation. Like someone who had pressed a shutter for ten straight years suddenly putting the gear down; muscle memory still pushed you to frame the shot, but your hands were already empty. On the third day, I made a decision. I took the general family zoom lens out of my camera bag and swapped it for a prime lens I hadn't touched in ages. At our weekend family gathering, I didn't bring my camera for the first time. "I want to be in the photos today," I said. Ethan blinked, caught off guard. "I'll use my phone then." He snapped two pictures. Both were blurry. Bella leaned in to look. "Daddy takes bad pictures." I offered a faint smile and said nothing. Deep inside my chest, something began to loosen. On the fifth day, I pulled out a gray moisture-proof case tucked away in the corner of the closet. Inside was my college photography project—a series called Women Artisans of the City. I had only shot three sets before setting it aside for good. Flipping open the first print, the faint scent of aged photographic paper hit me. Bella scampered over to look. "Mommy took these? They're so pretty!" "Yeah. I used to work on lots of photography projects of my own." "Used to? Don't you take them anymore?" I looked into her earnest little eyes. "I still do. I just haven't shot anything for myself in a really long time." That night, after Bella fell asleep, I cleared off the dining table and opened my laptop. I was rusty, taking forever just to cull through raw files. Yet by the time I finished editing the final set, a closed-off room in my heart was thrown wide open. It felt like a lens cap had finally been removed. The picture was still a little out of focus, but the light was pouring back in. Throughout those two weeks, Ethan didn't notice a thing. When I stopped texting, he never asked, "Why aren't you texting me?" When I stopped calling, he never rang to ask, "Why haven't you called lately?" I no longer waited by the front door for him. He'd unlock the door, kick off his shoes, eat, scroll through his phone, and go to bed. Everything continued as usual. No, that wasn't entirely true. Before, I would export the day's shots, sorting Ethan's project sites and Bella's milestones into neat archives. Now, I didn't bother. His project files piled up on the SD card untouched. And he never once asked about them. It turned out my presence in his life was that negligible. So insignificant that even when I stopped photographing him, he didn't even notice the camera was no longer sitting on the living room table. I used to think this was heartbreakingly tragic. Now, I thought—it was for the best. It proved that my stopping didn't affect him in the slightest. So what had been the point of those ten years? The point was: over ten thousand photos, and not a single one had me in it. Admitting that out loud stung worse than any of the times he had hung up on me. Yet right after the sting faded, a strange, unfamiliar sense of relief washed over me. My friend Sarah asked me out for coffee. She was the only college friend I had stayed in touch with all these years, now working as an art gallery curator. Once we sat down and ordered, she was the first to speak. "You seem different lately." "Do I?" "Yeah. Usually, the first thing out of your mouth is 'Ethan ignored my texts again.' You didn't say that today." I let out a soft laugh. "I don't care anymore." Sarah's hand froze mid-air, holding her coffee mug. "What did you just say?" "I said, I'm done chasing Ethan. I don't want to be his maid anymore, and I'm done treating him like my only muse." She set her mug down and stared at me intently for five full seconds. Then, she did something unexpected. She slammed her palm onto the table three times. The smack echoed through the cafe, making people at neighboring tables turn and stare. "Chloe, that is the most lucid thing you've said in ten whole years." I sat there stunned, feeling a lump rise in my throat, almost wanting to cry. But I held it together.By the third week, Ethan's mother came over. She stayed with us for a month every year. She wasn't an overtly wicked mother-in-law, but she had a knack for casually tossing out words that cut the deepest. The evening she arrived, she frowned and asked me: "Chloe, why is the house so messy? Haven't you cleaned up? It was never like this before." She was right. In the past, I'd spend days deep-cleaning before her arrival, scrubbing the floors until they shone like mirrors. This time, I hadn't. Not that I did it out of spite. I had photoshoots to edit and minor client revisions to make. I simply didn't have the time. "I've been busy lately," I said. She didn't reply, but I caught her glancing at Ethan. I knew that look all too well. Translated, it meant: See? You insisted on marrying her, and she's not even someone you actually loved. For once, Ethan didn't stay silent. "Mom, the place looks fine." His mother smiled lightly. "I didn't say anything bad." The next day, she waited until Ethan left for work, then cornered me in the kitchen. "Chloe, what's going on between you and Ethan?" "I'm not throwing a tantrum." "Still trying to play dumb? You barely talk to him now. In the past, the second he walked through the door, you were all over him, chattering away and taking pictures." My hands stopped washing the dish. "I think what you said before was right. A woman who throws herself at a man loses her value. A person needs to have her own career." Her smile froze on her face. "I only said that for your own good. A married couple should give each other some space." I put the clean plate in the cupboard. "As you can see, I'm giving him plenty of space now." She stared at me for a while. "What is that supposed to mean?" "Nothing at all. I just think things are pretty good like this." Her lips twitched. "Bella is still so young. You're her mother; you need to think about how this affects the child before you do anything reckless." "A tense household isn't good for her upbringing." I didn't say another word, simply turning back to finish the silverware. In the past, I was terrified of her disliking me. Whatever she said, I listened carefully and followed to the letter, terrified of upsetting her. Now, all I felt like doing was laughing. She only stayed for five days before packing up to leave. Before heading out, she pulled Ethan out onto the balcony and talked to him for half an hour. I was in the living room taking pictures with Bella, unable to hear what they were saying. When Ethan walked back inside, his expression was complicated. He stood beside me, not saying a word, yet not walking away either. I completely ignored him. That night, he initiated a conversation for the first time. "Have you been mad at me lately?" I was sitting in front of my laptop editing photos. I didn't even look up. "No." "Then why haven't you been texting me?" My hand stopped moving the mouse. How ironic. For the past ten years, I'd text him every single day asking what time he'd be home, and he found me annoying. Now that I had stopped, he was the one asking. "I didn't stop texting," I said, continuing to edit. "I just realized there was nothing worth sending." He froze. Over the past decade, whenever I begged him to tell me why he never cared about me, he used that exact line on me. Without waiting for him to reply, I closed my laptop and walked away. Just like the thousands of times he had turned his back on me.