Evelyn's Photo

Robert Wiles' camera captured more than just a woman that day.

It was odd, the way he found it; how could he be part of such an intimate moment in a stranger's life? Wiles had always felt like the end was backstage behind an eyelid curtain, a performance one was to turn away from. He didn't know how to feel knowing that he'd opened the curtain, taken a picture of it for God's sake.

Something he'd had to learn as a photography student was that if you could, you'd take a picture a thousand times a day. Most of those would be of people you don't know, situations you don't understand. Your camera would be one-thousand full of senseless blurs and an eye that isn't your color. There'd be a child whose face needs a desperate thumb-rubbing, a dog you think of when you hear the word "mangy", a woman cradling a lump that's either a baby or was one. There'd be so many hopeless pictures you'd struggle every day between tossing it in the fire or submitting it to TIME. And, it'd feel symbolically wrong to toss so much homeless anguish into the fire of your warm, dry home, so TIME it is.

Sometimes Wiles wished that that photo had been a senseless blur he could toss into the fire.

She had such beautiful lashes. They were almost like feather dusters. Wiles wondered if she'd ever been a maid, if she'd spent so much watching her hand guide a duster on delicate bookshelves that her eyes had evolved to assimilate.

Everything about her was so gentle, so absolute, it'd be hard to guess that her insides were liquefied. It really was a tragedy, in every sense of the word; Wiles was only aware of one. That phrase often floated around in his mind, like a childless balloon. It really was a tragedy, it really was a tragedy. When he checked in to see what his mind was doing, it was still there. It really was a tragedy, it really was a tragedy. He sat in his room with a book late at night, reading the same sentence over and over. To him, it only said one thing. It really was a tragedy, it really was a tragedy. He couldn't do this anymore, he thought. He wasn't so sure anymore, whatever was going on inside and out. All he wanted was to help the woman in his camera.

She looked about his age, if not a bit older. She and him met while intersecting on the street. Nobody ever notices each other on the streets of NYC. But they both ducked into the same shop at the same time. They laughed, Wiles backing out of the way so that she could get in first. She thanked him. The conversation had been sparked.

They exchanged phone numbers. They spoke. Romantic waves never passed through the phone lines, to Wiles' delight. He had a female friend he didn't feel like he had to be a man for. They were just two young friends navigating New York City.

They grew close. Every time Wiles thought of her, he remembered that day they were equivalent in their passion of getting through that door. How they both found it funny. How they'd liked each other enough to learn to like each other more.

And maybe one day they'd be in Wiles' apartment late at night, and she'd be a little drunk and sad and she'd tell Wiles why she was drunk and sad and he'd listen. The clock in the corner of his eye climbs to 2 a.m. as she confesses that she's felt a terrible ache in her head for the past few days.

Not like a migraine, Rob, like an ache.

Not just the past few days, she'd say. She lied. It's been for as long as she could remember, but she'd usually been able to tune it out until recently. Why?

There's a lot of answers to that why. The real question is when?

When?

When it'll all stop. When I'll be strong enough to tune it out again.

That was something that stuck with Wiles. She'd never imagined a world where she didn't feel the ache at all. He'd glance at her bare feet, crossed at the ankles. When she planted herself in the roof of that car, they were also crossed, pointing up at the sky and bruised. She'd tell him something that was bothering her. She'd never been the same after her mother left, or her lover was too good for her. Something to make her sob and shake enough for Wiles to get a blanket and place it on her shoulders. He'd say something weak enough to cut through with a glance: It wasn't her fault that her mother left, her love probably thought she was too good for him. Weak, but maybe she'd appreciate it, and so she wouldn't jump. Nobody had even told her so much as that weak little sentence, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders when she got drunk and sad. A blanket was much softer than the roof of a car.

But maybe for the woman, it was better. Maybe to her, pain was more of a comfort than love. She must've felt a lot of pain, crashing through the air from the 86th floor of the Empire State and hitting the car roof. She'd fallen on her back, and the roof had made a place for her. Her hand had been curled oh-so gently, like a slightly crushed flower. Her clothes were rumpled, but everything was in its place and she'd looked calm, as if sleeping. Wiles found himself near tears as he thought of his desire to only have photographed a sleeping woman. How he desperately wanted her to be comfortable in love, to be so that she'd never sought the comfort of pain. How he desperately wanted to shout "Done!", for those feather-duster eyes to flutter open. How he wanted the car roof to be a set piece, not crushed by a woman but a hammer instead. How he wanted it to look unrealistic, so that when he developed it he didn't see a dead woman but a model lying on a terribly-dented piece of tin. How he wanted to forget that he'd even taken that picture at all, wondered who she was, wondering why she ached and when she'd be able to tune it out and when he'd be able to close the curtain on the situation that really was a tragedy.

When he read the article in TIME, he found the woman's name. Evelyn McHale. He bit the inside of his cheek when he read the name, knowing he'd never be able to forget it. Evelyn McHale, the most beautiful suicide. He knew she'd hate it, seeing her name in that article and her picture on that page. She'd always seemed so small and shy, only crying when she was drunk and sad at 3 a.m, and Wiles was there. Which he wasn't. She'd never been drunk and sad at 3 a.m, and so he'd been drunk and sad when he remembered the bottom of the Empire State. He'd immortalized her, when she'd wished to be forgotten. He hadn't just pulled back the curtain, he'd built the whole damn theatre. And now, he'd have to wonder if there was another story he could've told, one that didn't end with a woman denting a car roof. He hoped, deeply, that there was. He hoped that there was a timeline for Evelyn to find love more comforting than pain, a timeline where that photo never existed and they never knew each other, either in life or in death.

It really was a tragedy.