Free Envy by Kathryn Harrison

“Whether it comes from within a person or from without?”
    â€œI don’t know. What’s inspiration?”
    His father frowns thoughtfully, says nothing.
    The photographs his father takes mystify Will. Whenever he visits, he looks at his father’s most recent work, going slowly through the images, many of which he can place in the town where he grew up: benches he’s sat on, signposts he’s swung from, mailboxes and sewer covers and barber poles. But no sculptures or fountains or fancy weather vanes; his father prefers the artless and unassuming among possible subjects, and points his camera at things that stay put. There are no people and no animals, not even trees that aren’t incidental, blurred background. Only objects, humble objects strangely transformed by his father’s vision. It must be the light, Will has decided, the angle of the sun, the time of day, perhaps a filter that removes light waves of a particular length. What else could elevate a seemingly inventory art into a catalog of yearning? Even a lamppost looks as if, unfulfilled by life as a lamppost, it’s on the brink of evolving into something else, something truer and brighter and realer. By virtue of a silent, invisible intent, it seems to shimmer, caught just at that moment before it disappears, changes, becomes another thing, or a nonthing—animate, potent, and unexpected.
    Or maybe it isn’t a function of light; maybe it’s just projection. Maybe what Will sees is his own need to believe in a father who has the ability to alter the world around himself, or, at the least, to show Will what a new, illuminated world might look like.
    â€œWell,” his father says, “aside from painting and music and what have you, aren’t you asking the old God question? Whether or not God exists outside of faith? Independent of our faith?”
    Will looks at him. “Weird how as you get older you find yourself less and less certain of anything.”
    â€œJust wait,” his father says. “You have no idea.”
    â€œMom believes in God, doesn’t she?”
    His father shakes his head. “That’s a very private question,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked her directly.”
    â€œCarole does. Or maybe she doesn’t. She seems at peace with life, with herself. Not like me. I think she might be what they used to call a secular humanist. Brimming over with unaccountable optimism. Even after Luke. Even now, when every day brings more evidence of how many messes we’ve made that we can’t undo. Environmental damage. Terrorism.”
    His father nods slowly. “Sometimes,” he says, as he steps onto the curb, “when I print a picture, I see that I’ve photographed what I didn’t know was there. Whatever it is, it’s something I looked at without seeing. So I’m surprised, I feel something’s been given to me. But by whom? What?” He looks at Will. “There’s a quote I came across. I can’t get it out of my head. ‘The unconscious is “God’s country.’ ” He folds his arms over his chest, frowning. “That’s the reason I’ve been reading up on it—Freud, Jung. What do you make of it?”
    â€œWhat’s the context?” Will asks. “Who said it?”
    His father makes a swatting gesture. “I can’t remember. What I want to know is, is it true? Do you, as a psychoanalyst, someone who’s always mucking about in there, think it’s true?”
    Will frowns. “Well, the unconscious would be the place from which irrational fears and hopes, dreams—”
    His father interrupts. “Whoever it was, that’s not what they were talking about.”
    â€œYou didn’t let me finish.”
    â€œI know where you’re going, and it’s a little more mysterious than that.”
    â€œNo, you didn’t let me