By Wednesday Tess had told five people it had been a good match.
It had been. That wasn't the difficulty. She had played some of her best forward tennis, saved break points she could still feel in her shoulders, made Inez hit a backhand nobody had any right to make. The last shot had landed in. She had walked to the net, said well played and meant it.
Then she had looked beyond Inez and seen her mother standing up.
The interval between those things had grown in her memory. In fact it had been almost no time at all. Mara must have stood as the ball landed. Tess knew that; there was video if she wanted to be certain. She hadn't watched it. The picture that remained was her mother reaching the rail with a bag already on her shoulder, pleased and busy, and Tess trying to get the towel into her own bag without dropping anything.
Owen had driven her back to the hotel. He didn't tell her she had played well until they were halfway there. When he did, she said thank you, and he let that be the whole conversation about tennis. They talked about the traffic. At the hotel she hugged him before he left and said he should have used the fan.
On Sunday she drove home alone. On Monday she spoke to Hana about Hudson. On Tuesday she practiced. None of those things had been difficult to decide. She wanted Hana to stay, wanted another tournament, wanted the ball that would let her finish the point rather than merely get into the net. She could be certain of all that and still find herself standing in the kitchen, about to call someone whose name had changed its use in her phone.
Wednesday afternoon she went to buy two frames.
There were photographs everywhere on the internet, and almost none in her house. The shelves held April's books, a bowl somebody had given her and a little clay dog she had made at nine, its ears missing. The walls were bare except for a print the previous owner had left in the hallway. Tess had lived with it for eleven months because moving it would leave a pale rectangle she would then have to do something about.
She wanted a photograph of the river. April had taken one during the spring when the water was high, a strip of silver light beneath the bridge. Tess had been there but didn't remember seeing the light. She wanted to look at it when she came home. The other photograph she hadn't chosen yet.
In the shop a woman asked what size she needed. Tess showed her the river picture on her phone. The woman enlarged it, frowned and asked whether she had the original file.
“My friend does.”
“Get her to send that. This one's been sent through something.”
Tess called April. There was a low voice counting behind her, then a rising tone that made Tess hold the phone away from her ear.
“Can you send the river picture?” she asked when it stopped. “The big one. The actual file.”
“Yeah. Not now.”
“No, that's fine.”
“I'm in the middle of a thing. I'll do it when we're done.”
“Take your time.”
April had already begun answering somebody else. Tess said goodbye into the noise. The woman in the shop handed the phone back and showed her what the picture would look like with a wider border. Tess chose the pale wood, then changed her mind and chose it again. There was nothing at stake except how it would look. She enjoyed that until the woman asked about the second frame.
Tess opened the album from Merritt. There were hundreds of images, most taken by somebody else: the serve, the trophy, the moment on her knees. She had saved a photograph of herself and Mara in the corridor, but their faces were turned toward the official camera. Tess knew what had happened ten minutes later and couldn't stop seeing it in the space beside them.
“I haven't picked it,” she said.
The woman told her to come back when she had. Tess bought the river frame and carried it to the car, then sat for a moment before starting the engine. Her mother had taken another picture that day. The stupid one with the trophy held up like a fish. Tess couldn't find it in their messages. Mara had sent the proper one to her grandmother, but the first, blurred picture was probably still on her phone.
She typed, Do you have the fish picture from Merritt?
Then she waited with her thumb above the send button. The message didn't say anything about Saturday. It also didn't say Saturday was fine. She sent it before she could make it stand for either thing.
At home she cleared a place on the table and put down the wrapped frame. There was laundry to hang, a travel bag to empty properly instead of taking individual things out of it until it became light. She put the clothes in the machine, shook the sand out of a pair of shoes and began the small jobs she always left until the night before she went away again.
Hana called about the Hudson practice booking. Tess gave her the time her hitting partner could come and asked for the later session if they could get it. Hana had an appointment of her own and couldn't stay through the whole afternoon. They worked it out in three minutes. Before hanging up, Tess asked whether they could keep the same arrangement through Lakefront.
“Yes,” Hana said. “I'll send the dates. We should have done that already.”
“I wanted to say it.”
“All right. I'm glad.”
They hung up. Tess wasn't waiting to find a better reason than the one she had already had. She wanted this work with this coach. She put the new dates into her calendar and opened the washing machine when it beeped.
Her mother's reply arrived while she was hanging shirts on the rack. Three photographs: the fish face, the proper one, and the blurred first attempt. In the last, Tess's eyes were nearly shut and Mara's finger occupied the bottom corner. She could hear her mother laughing as she looked at it.
Was this the one? Mara had written.
Tess sent back, The terrible one. Yes.
Mara's typing marks appeared, stopped and appeared again. Tess put another shirt on the rack. The marks vanished. For a minute there was no reply.
She looked at the time. Just after eight in Richmond. Seven in Chicago. Her mother would be finishing something, or preparing tomorrow, or sitting in a room while Inez did whatever she did in the evening. Tess didn't know. She had never needed to ask where Mara was between tournaments. Until now Mara's arrangements had been part of Tess's own.
She pressed call.
Mara answered quickly. “Hello.”
“Have you got a minute?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Tess sat on the edge of the couch. One sock was caught beneath her thigh. She pulled it out and put it with the others.
“I wanted that picture,” she said.
“I sent it.”
“I know. I got it.”
“Good.”
They were both quiet. Tess could hear an unfamiliar sound behind her, a repeating mechanical hum.
“Where are you?”
“My room. The window's open. I can shut it.”
“No. I was just asking.”
“There's an air unit outside. Not mine. I think it cools the entire rest of Chicago.”
Tess smiled, but there was no laugh ready. She had thought the photograph might carry them farther than this.
“I'm putting some pictures up,” she said. “I bought a frame.”
“For that?”
“Not yet. I want one from the river too.”
Mara asked which river picture, and Tess told her about April's photograph, the light she hadn't seen until afterward. She sent it. Mara took a moment to find it, then said she liked it. Tess waited for a suggestion about where it should go. None came.
“Above the shelves, maybe,” she said.
“That would be nice.”
Tess got up and stood where she could see the wall. It was possible to imagine the picture there, the pale frame against the paint. She had thought she needed to make the whole room happen at once. One picture would be enough for now.
“Saturday was awful,” she said.
She hadn't meant to say it. The sentence had come while she was looking at the wall, her back to the room.
Mara drew breath. “I know.”
“I don't mean the match was bad.”
“No.”
Tess shut her eyes. She could see her mother beginning to choose a useful sentence, somewhere far away. It was nearly possible to help her, to supply the thing they could both say and get past. Tess didn't want to do that.
“I played well,” she said.
“You did.”
“And I lost.”
“Yes.”
Neither filled the next silence. Tess sat again. She had known before hiring Hana that Mara could work with somebody else. She had said it, meant it, defended it to people who tried to turn it into a scandal. When the backhand landed, she had still wanted her mother's face to change in the same direction as hers.
“I didn't know who to call after,” she said. “I mean, Dad was there. And Hana. It wasn't that nobody was there.”
“I looked for you.”
“I was going.”
“I know.”
Mara sounded smaller than Tess expected. Tess wanted to ask whether she had been happy. She knew the answer. The question would make her mother say something the match had already shown them both.
Instead she asked, “Did you sleep afterward?”
Mara gave a soft, surprised laugh. “Not much.”
“Me neither.”
“I kept waking up.”
“I couldn't get to sleep. Then somebody started a truck underneath my window.”
They spoke about the hotel, about the noise in the corridor after the match, about Owen stopping to buy coffee before the drive home. There were things they had both seen that did not require either of them to win the conversation. Tess told Mara that he had left the peanut butter in the car after all and driven it home. Mara had already heard. She didn't make Tess feel late to the story.
“Are you in Chicago all week?” Tess asked.
“Till the weekend. Then Hudson.”
“Okay.”
“I'll be home after.”
Tess tucked one foot beneath her. The edge of the tape on her heel had come loose. She left it alone.
“When we're both back,” she said, “you could come over. Not to do anything. Just come.”
“I'd like that.”
“Monday after Hudson, maybe. We can see.”
“All right.”
Mara didn't ask whether Tess wanted her to look at the semifinal. Tess had been waiting for it almost without knowing she was waiting. At last she told her about the print the previous owner had left in the hall. Mara remembered it, a small boat on a body of water too blue to be real. She had assumed Tess liked it.
“I don't hate it,” Tess said. “It just isn't mine.”
“Keep the hook, anyway.”
Tess laughed. There was relief in it and she didn't try to hide that. Mara asked to see the new picture when it went up. Tess said she would send one, crooked or not.
After they hung up she stayed on the couch. The room had not changed. A travel bag lay open by the chair, the drying rack took up too much space, and the wrapped frame waited on the table. She looked at the three photographs again and saved the blurred one into a different folder, where she could find it without going through the match pictures.
April sent the river file just before ten, with no message. Tess thanked her and sent the proper dimensions to the frame shop. Then she put the phone on charge and went to finish packing for Hudson.