Sea Change

by Karen White

  I was standing at the processing center at the front of the store and emptying my bag of film canisters on the counter when I heard somebody call my name. I turned to see John McMahon at the checkout near the entrance. He walked toward me, holding a can of shaving cream and two packages of photo paper.

  I smiled tentatively, remembering the last time I’d seen him at Tish’s party and his parting words to me: Be careful, Ava. He’s not who you think he is.

  “Hello, John. How are you?”

  “I really should be asking you that, I think.”

  “Please don’t,” I said, turning my back to him. “He’s my husband, and whatever differences you have are between the two of you.”

  He paused for a moment before speaking. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t want my grievances with Matthew to get in between my friendship with you.”

  I turned around. “I hope we can be friends. But I also hope that you and Matthew will find a way to mend things between you.”

  He watched me closely, his eyes thoughtful. “Me, too,” he said quietly. His gaze was redirected to the pile of film canisters on the counter. “Are you still using an Instamatic camera?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “Actually, these aren’t even from my camera. I, um, collect these.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Just a hobby. I find them at garage sales and develop them. Stupid, I know, but it’s fun.”

  “It’s not stupid at all. It’s actually pretty cool. Every human is a voyeur of some sort. You just have a unique way of exploring it.”

  Uncomfortable, I stepped back. “I’m not a voyeur. It’s just…”

  “Sure you are—like I said, we all are in some form or another. I’m just curious what it is you’re hoping to see.” I noticed how the dark pupils of his eyes appeared large against the blue-green irises, adding an intensity to his gaze.

  My cheeks flushed, and I was relieved to see an employee approaching the counter. While I wrote down all of the information on the film envelopes and tore off my claim tickets, I was aware of John heading toward the checkout. I hoped he’d leave with just a wave so I wouldn’t have to speak with him again. Regardless of what I said about our being friends, I didn’t think Matthew would have seen it the same way.

  I thanked the employee and wheeled my cart around, looking for the outdoor and gardening aisle. I was in the process of hoisting a large and heavy clay pot inside my cart when John reappeared.

  “Let me help you with that,” he said, taking the pot and placing it carefully inside the cart.

  “Thanks,” I said, brushing off my hands. I probably couldn’t have lifted it inside without dropping it. Still, his presence made me uncomfortable.

  “Are you mad at me?” he asked, his unusual eyes clear.

  “No, of course not,” I said, avoiding his eyes as I placed a trowel and two smaller clay pots in my cart.

  “Good. Because I was going to ask you to show me the pictures once you get them developed. I think it might be kind of cool. Plus, I’m a photographer, too.” He held up his shopping bag with the photo paper inside. “Although the project I’m working on right now is all about scanning old pictures and reprinting them in different sizes. No skill there, but it’s fun.”

  I warmed to his open smile and easy manner, wondering, too, whether Adrienne had been like that. “You’re a professional photographer?” I asked.

  “Nah—just a hobby, really. But I enjoy it. I’m actually an insurance salesman.” His grin revealed a deep dimple on his right cheek. “Needed something fun to talk about at parties.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Are you one of those purists who don’t believe in digital?”

  “Oh, no—although I do enjoy using my old thirty-five-millimeter. I like to experiment and resize certain photos. I’m actually working on an anniversary gift for my parents right now—” He stopped suddenly, like he’d just realized whom he was speaking to and shouldn’t say more.

  Being the youngest of five had taught me to speak up or I’d never be heard. Dissembling was for those who commanded attention through birth order or stature. My mother had always told me it was unladylike behavior; Mimi told me it was a surefire way to get what I wanted.

  As if I hadn’t noticed his hesitation, I said, “What kind of an anniversary present?”

  His smile looked brittle enough to crack. “I have an old four-by-six photograph of my sister that I wanted to make into an eight-by-ten. My scanner at home isn’t too great, so I thought they might do a better job of it here. Anyway, I need it to be bigger to fit into a really great frame I bought at an antique store in Savannah. It was a favorite photograph of theirs.”

  I continued to smile around the tightness in my chest. “That’s a great idea. I’m sure it will mean a lot to them.” I remembered a faded photograph Mimi kept on her bedside table of my grandfather wearing his army uniform before he was sent to Italy in World War II. In it, he was leaning against an old car with his arm around an impossibly young Mimi. They were laughing and looking at each other, and despite her having a shoe box full of old photographs, it was that one that she kept beside her bed.

  “Yeah, well, I hope so.” He glanced down at his bag. “Would you like to see it?”

  I was struck dumb for a moment, wondering how I could refuse before realizing that I couldn’t. “I’d like that.” I really didn’t want to know what Adrienne looked like; it was hard enough competing with her without knowing that she was beautiful.

  John reached into the bag and pulled out a worn envelope with the flap tucked inside. With blunt, tanned fingers, he pulled out the photograph and handed it to me.

  I didn’t notice the water in the photo at first, and I was glad. The woman in the center of the photograph captured the viewer’s gaze, obliterating everything else. I knew she and John weren’t biological siblings, but they looked enough alike to have been related by blood. Her hair was white-blond, like John’s, her eyes a bright green. She was beautiful, with perfect skin and features, but it was more than that. If charisma like that could be transferred onto paper, I couldn’t imagine what its force must have been like in real life.

  She stared out at the photographer with a Mona Lisa smile, but there was nothing timid in her gaze. I looked closely at her eyes. At first glance I’d thought they reminded me of John’s, but I’d been wrong. His were easily read, his emotions quickly discerned. But Adrienne’s seemed different, even in color, the bright green of them outlined with shadows. I held the edge of the photograph tightly, thinking that if I looked closely enough I could find the things she wanted to keep hidden.

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, hating the word even as I said it, knowing it to be as inadequate as calling a tsunami a wave. I forced my gaze to take in the rest of the picture, seeing now that she was on a sailboat and standing on the teak deck, her hands grasping rope with a sureness that told me she knew what she was doing. She was looking over her shoulder, as if the photographer had just called her name. “Who took the picture?” I asked, reluctantly handing it back to him.

  He kept his eyes focused on the envelope as he tucked the picture back inside. “Matthew,” he said, his tone flat as he said the name. “They’d planned to enter some sailing race up in Charleston the following spring, so they were out a lot on the boat that summer.”

  “Did they do well?”

  He stared at me for a moment before answering. “They never made it. She died at the end of August.”

  I wished I had the photograph again, to see whether it was the knowledge that she had only a few months to live that had placed clouds in her eyes. As if something like that were possible.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as if it had anything to do with me. Like I would have stopped it if I could.

  “Thank you,” he said, his eyes clear again and his smile sincere.

  I looked at my watch, surprised to see how late it was. Matthew was working at home and would be exp
ecting me. “I should probably get going. It was great seeing you again.”

  “You, too,” he said. He pulled out his wallet and handed me a card. “Call me when you get the pictures developed. We could go have lunch and we can look at them together.”

  “I will, thank you,” I said as I pocketed the card, not entirely sure that I would.

  “Great. I’ll be seeing you then.” With a little salute, he moved to the door, then paused, turning back to face me. “By the way, please tell Matthew that my parents are thankful for all of Adrienne’s sketches he brought over today. I’ve been asking him for them for almost four years now. But tell him that it doesn’t change anything.”

  Without waiting for me to respond, he turned around again and left through the automatic doors, their closing like a little whoosh of breath.

  I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. Matthew and I had agreed to go through everything in the studio together over the weekend when we were both free and decide what to do with it all. We were supposed to have made the decisions together.

  My fingers shook as I placed the items on the counter and paid with my credit card. Why would he have done it all by himself? I loaded everything into my car and drove out of the parking lot, realizing I’d forgotten the large clay pot in the cart, and not even caring, my mind racing with another, more troubling question: What had he been hoping to find?

  Pamela

  ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA

  JULY 1808

  I knelt in the dirt with my basket, pulling the weeds from my herb garden, and gathering comfrey for Leda. Her rheumatism had gotten so bad that she could scarcely bend her fingers, and I had to take over many of the gardening duties. Jemma was a big help, but I could tell she preferred to mind little Robbie, and I allowed her. She loved my sweet baby as much as he loved her, and as soon as he could comprehend I would tell him that Jemma had saved his life and mine, and that more was owed to her than we could ever repay.

  I sat on my heels, stretching my back and trying not to mind the emptiness in my womb. I had known after Robbie’s birth that there could be no more children, and Robbie was the perfect child: sunny in disposition, bright and eager to learn. Still, I mourned the empty spaces in our house, the corners and rooms that should be filled with children’s laughter and the padding of small feet.

  Geoffrey had comforted me. Robbie was enough for us, and we would get used to the idea of having just one child. But when Geoffrey loved me at night, I knew in his soft murmurings that he was secretly glad. Because I had seen the terror on his face when I labored to give birth to our son, had seen the fear of learning that forever could mean the span of only a few years.

  Robbie giggled, the sound like pollen to my heart, as Jemma held his small hand in hers under the shade of an oak tree while his plump and sturdy legs attempted to run. He was a cautious child and would stop at each tug from Jemma’s hand. I suppose it was natural for him to be hesitant about a life that so easily could have been denied him. It was all Geoffrey and I could do not to jump up and save him every time he stumbled or ventured too far beyond our arms’ grasp.

  I turned back to my garden, my task made easier by the sound of Robbie’s laughter. When Georgina and I had been small and our mother still alive, we had had a magnificent garden of scented blooms, descendants of clippings from our grandmother’s Savannah garden. My father was a farmer, yet he had captured the heart of the daughter of a prominent Savannah family. He had allowed space in our vegetable garden for her frivolous flowers, hoping that it would somehow make up for bringing her to our desolate and sometimes hostile island. It had not. When I was eleven and Georgina nine, our mother had given birth to a stillborn boy, and soon after succumbed to a fever. One day she had simply fallen asleep and never awakened, as if neither her children, her husband, nor even her bright blooms were enough to make her want to cling to life. Even though I had been a few months short of my twelfth birthday, I had made a promise to myself to not allow myself to love anything with less than my whole heart.

  I adjusted the brim of my bonnet to shield my face from the scorching sun as a rivulet of sweat slipped down between my shoulder blades. I longed for more help, for a new dress, for pretty flowers in my garden like Anna Matilda King over at Retreat Plantation. She refused to plant anything that didn’t have a pleasing fragrance, and her gardens were legendary. But I had Geoffrey and Robbie, and my heart was full.

  “Mistress Frazier.”

  I looked up to see Nathaniel Smith coming from the direction of the house, his hat in his hands. With effort, I straightened my cramped legs so I could stand, then waited for him to approach. He bowed his head in greeting.

  Geoffrey’s opinion of Nathaniel Smith had not altered since the horrible day of the pig slaughtering and Robbie’s birth, but mine had. I slid off my gloves, the gold band on my finger glinting in the sun, and held my hands out to him. “You must call me Pamela. I am forever beholden and grateful for your assistance when Robert was born.”

  He grasped my hands in his gloved ones. “You owe me nothing. I was glad to be of service to you and your family. And you, of course, may call me Nathaniel.” He dropped my hands and looked down at the ground for a brief moment. “I did, however, come in the hopes of asking a favor, but not as payment.”

  Robbie squealed and we both looked over to where Jemma was tossing him gently in the air and catching him. She saw us looking at her and shyly ducked so she could pull the side of her head rag over her face to cover the ruined eye.

  “The girl is working out for you?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” I regarded him carefully, my forehead crinkling with worry. “I hope you are not reconsidering our barter.”

  “No, of course not. I am glad you have found her useful here.”

  “But that is not what you came to talk about.”

  He shook his head, and I could see he was uncomfortable with what he needed to say.

  “Come,” I said. “Let us go sit in the shade of the kitchen house and drink a cool glass of water and you can state your business.”

  He nodded his assent and followed me.

  Jemma sat Robbie on her hip and was already heading to the icehouse to get ice chips for our water. We sat in the shade on a wooden bench Geoffrey had carved from the oak of a fallen giant and spoke pleasantries until Jemma arrived with our drinks.

  Without further preamble, he said, “I’ve come to speak to you regarding Miss MacGregor.”

  “Georgina?” I asked with surprise.

  “Yes. With your father gone, you will have assumed responsibility of your sister now that she is living under your roof.”

  “I have, but Geoffrey is the head of our household. If you would like to stay for supper, he should be in from the fields….”

  “No. I wanted to speak with you. Your husband and I…” His voice trailed away.

  “Yes, my husband and you are not friends, although I have never been able to determine why. But I cannot make any decision regarding Georgina without consulting him—or her, for that matter. Georgina is visiting friends on Cumberland Island until the end of the month, but if you would like to call back then…”

  He was shaking his head. “I have already asked her to marry me three times—three times in the last three years, and each time she has refused.”

  I was not entirely surprised to hear this, yet surprised to learn that Georgina had had contact with Nathaniel as I had not seen him or spoken with him since Robbie’s birth. “Then why do you ask me? My sister has never been one to seek my counsel. She is able to make her own choices.”

  Nathaniel stared down into his hat. “Pamela, you are a kind and good woman. I knew you would not turn Jemma away, and would treat her kindly.”

  He looked away and I found that I, too, could not meet his eyes.

  He continued. “It is partly the reason why I am offering for Georgina.”

  My glass froze halfway to my mouth. “I do not understand.”

  He f
inished his water in a large gulp, and I imagined that he wished there were something much stronger to drink. Staring down into his empty glass, he said, “I have been in love with Georgina from the first time I met her. You were living in Savannah at the time with your grandmother, but I received permission from your father to court her, and she agreed. I thought that we would be betrothed, but suddenly she stopped seeing me entirely, and it was then that I realized that Geoffrey was courting her.”

  I swallowed. “Yes. I know all this. And then I returned and Geoffrey met me. There is no bad blood between my sister and me because of it, I assure you. And I have often thought that you would be a good provider for her. Still, I cannot choose a husband for her. If you wish to court her, you would need her permission, not mine.”

  He took a deep breath. “Georgina needs her own husband and home, Pamela. I would be good for her.”

  His fingers tightened along his hat brim, his gaze dancing along the brick path that led from the kitchen house to the garden, and I knew there was more than he was telling me; it was there in the way he angled his body away from me and the way his eyes avoided mine.

  I placed my hand on his arm. “Tell me,” I said, so quietly that I barely heard the words myself.

  He put his hand on top of mine. “Your husband holds you in high regard, Pamela.”

  I jerked away from him and stood. “I do not like what you are implying.”

  Nathaniel stood, too, his hat in his hands. “I do not mean to imply anything. Only that Georgina is young and beautiful, and that I would like to make her my wife.”

  “Do you love her still?”

  He sighed deeply and I was reminded of how he’d mourned for his first wife. “Yes, I sometimes wish that it were not so, but I do.”

  I looked toward Jemma, where she’d sat in a grassy patch, allowing Robbie to run around her in circles, his short arms stuck out like little bird’s wings. The fingers of my right hand clutched the gold ring on my left as I turned back to him. “I will ask her if you can court her, and if she is in agreement, then I will speak with Geoffrey. But if you love her, you will know that she is not easily persuaded.”