The living room was a temple to beige. It was a carefully curated landscape of cream throw pillows, oatmeal-colored rugs, and “greige” walls that my mother had spent three months selecting. It was a room designed to be looked at, not lived in.
And today, the centerpiece had finally arrived.
“It’s breathtaking,” my mother breathed, standing back to admire the large canvas print hanging above the mantel. “The lighting is divine.”
I rolled into the room, the rubber of my tires silent on the hardwood floors. I had been dreading this. The photoshoot had been a nightmare of forced smiles and my mother fussing over the angle of my legs, trying to hide the “clunky” parts of my chair with strategically placed blankets.
I looked up at the photo. It was set in a sun-drenched meadow. My father stood tall and proud. My sister, Sarah, looked effortless in her white linen dress. My mother was beaming, the picture of maternal grace.
I squinted. I scanned the left side of the frame, then the right. I looked for the glint of metal spokes or the familiar blue of my shirt.
The air left my lungs.
“Mom,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Where am I?”
She didn’t turn around. She adjusted a vase of dried pampas grass, seemingly engrossed in its symmetry. “Oh, honey, don’t be dramatic. You know how expensive these prints are. We had to make sure the composition worked for the room.”
“I was there,” I said, my voice rising. “I was right next to Dad. I remember the photographer telling me to chin up.”
“Well, yes,” she said, finally turning to face me. Her expression was pitying, as if I were the one being unreasonable. “But when the proofs came back, we had to make a choice.”
She gestured vaguely at the canvas. “I wasn’t in the main shot” wasn’t even the full truth. I had been excised. Surgically removed by a digital brush.
“You asked him to remove me?” I asked, feeling a cold numbness spreading through my chest.
“I asked him to clean it up,” she corrected. “We wanted a ‘perfect family portrait’. And honestly, Lanna… the chair. It’s so industrial. It distracted from the natural tones. It just… ruined the aesthetic“.
There it was. The truth, naked and ugly in the beige room. To my mother, my disability wasn’t a part of my life or my identity; it was a design flaw. It was a visual blemish that clashed with her decor. She had literally Photoshop[ped] me out to maintain the illusion of a flawless, able-bodied lineage.
I looked back at the photo. It was beautiful. It was serene. It was a complete lie. The family in that frame didn’t exist. The family in that frame was a fantasy where everyone walked, where no one suffered, and where appearances mattered more than people.
“You’re right,” I said quietly, gripping the rims of my wheels. “It fits the room perfectly.”
“I knew you’d understand,” she smiled, relief washing over her face.
“I do,” I said, turning my chair around to leave. “It’s hollow, artificial, and empty. Just like this house.”
I rolled out of the room, leaving her alone with her perfect picture and the silence of a daughter who finally realized she had never truly been seen.
