The Golden Hour

by T. Greenwood

  “If you’re not careful,” he said softly, “after a while, all grievances start to have the same weight. Infidelity becomes no different than leaving the toilet seat up. Just another annoyance to contend with.”

  I had no idea where he was going with this.

  “And the island?”

  “It used to be a big grievance,” he said, and he seemed to almost wince. As if the thought caused him physical pain.

  “And now?” I asked, feeling the coffee starting to defrost me.

  “And now, it’s just another wet towel on the floor.”

  “That’s sad,” I said. And it was. The idea that whatever, or more likely whoever, caused Fiona to feel so strongly about this island had become something she merely put up with seemed somehow pathetic to me. For a moment, I even felt a bit sorry for her.

  “What’s wrong with the island?” I asked. “Besides the wind chill, I mean?”

  “It’s not really the island,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. I knew this was about the woman in my house.

  “And what about you? What do you tolerate?” I asked. “There must be something you put up with?”

  Seamus smiled a bit sadly.

  “She is an intelligent woman,” he said. “Smarter than I ever was. But her intelligence is a bit of a curse.”

  “Would she be better off a beautiful fool?” I asked, thinking of Daisy Buchanan in Gatsby.

  He smirked. “Wouldn’t we all.”

  It was one of those conversations that felt like something from Alice in Wonderland. A riddle. Circling and circling whatever it was he was trying to say without ever getting to the point. It was maddening.

  “Did you know her?” I finally blurted out. “The woman next door?”

  He was pouring coffee into my mug. He stopped, looking up at me as if he’d heard me wrong.

  “I did find some photos,” I admitted. “Like you said.”

  His eyes widened, and he looked at me with a sort of wild anticipation. Like I was holding onto something he wanted desperately. This kind of need terrified me.

  “Of?” he asked, his voice now softened. He was tentative, lacking any of the intellectual bravado he’d been exercising a minute ago.

  “Your upstairs bathroom,” I said. “And a bunch of other things too.”

  Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t told him at all. I felt like I’d just blurted out a secret that didn’t belong to me to a total stranger.

  “Can I see them?” he asked.

  I’d made a terrible mistake.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I glanced at my wrist, at a watch that wasn’t there, and said, “The ferry will be here soon. I really need to get into town. If I could just get my coat?”

  And suddenly, as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, Seamus seemed to jerk awake, out of his odd reverie.

  “Of course, of course. Hold on. It’s probably in the coatroom.”

  * * *

  The woman at the information booth at the ferry dock said the ferry Pilar was on was delayed by an hour, which gave me plenty of time to run over to the drugstore with my negatives. I knew I wouldn’t be able to print them all, but I could at least do the ones that appeared to have been taken inside Seamus and Fiona’s house and make enlargements of a few from the Epitaphs collection.

  The bells on the door to the pharmacy jingled, and the same cashier who’d been here my last couple of visits was working again, but he didn’t seem to acknowledge any familiarity with me. This was something I’d noticed on the island. It was as if you had to work extra hard to earn your status as an honorary local. I imagine because so many tourists came through in the summers, the real locals didn’t bother to remember faces. This is what I told myself so I didn’t feel like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone, so I didn’t feel like a ghost.

  “Happy New Year!” I said brightly and went over to the kiosk. I’d read the directions online so I wouldn’t have to ask for assistance. I felt oddly proprietary about the pictures. I didn’t want anyone accidentally seeing them. Clearly, she hadn’t intended for them to be shared. At least not until someone discovered them in her basement. Though, obviously it wasn’t supposed to be me. This was her legacy, I thought, but for whom was it intended?

  As quickly as I could, I fed the negatives into the machine and printed 5 x 7s of about ten frames. I found one strip that had no marks on it and almost tossed it aside, but then held it up to the light. My heart stopped in my throat.

  I threaded it through the machine and quickly printed every image, then shoved everything into the manila envelope. My heart was pounding hard and fast in my chest as I nodded at the man, who again seemed to be seeing me for the first time.

  I still had a half hour, and I was chilled to the bone, so I decided to go to the only restaurant that was open and get a cup of coffee and look at the prints.

  The chalkboard sign near the hostess stand said, PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED. Surprisingly, the restaurant was bustling with activity. There were no free tables or booths.

  “There are some open spots at the counter,” the hostess said. So I made my way to the counter and sat down on an empty stool, one with no one immediately next to me. A waitress materialized, coffee urn in hand, turned over the small porcelain mug and filled it.

  “You want something to eat too? We’ve got a nice steel cut oatmeal with apples and raisins?”

  “That sounds great,” I said.

  She returned with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and a sticky pitcher of syrup, refilled my coffee, and then left me alone.

  I slipped the prints out onto the counter and picked them up one by one.

  The girlie show photos were exactly as I imagined they would be, although blown up, the grit and filth of the midway were amplified. The women were not beautiful, rather crude, the rawness of their expressions acute. They looked distant, their gazes fixated on something beyond the midway. Though it wasn’t hope, but rather a sort of sad resignation in their eyes. And the men looked hungry, like animals circling.

  There had to be at least a half dozen prints that were absolutely stunning. Almost difficult to look at. How could such violence, such despair be so tremendously, achingly, beautiful?

  The series of the teenage couple and the car, as I expected, did not work as a series. But that one photo of them the moment the struggle began was breathtaking.

  I felt dizzy as I flipped through the pile.

  There were the photos from the negatives I hadn’t seen. Confused, I peered closer.

  The child. How do I describe the child?

  The first photo was taken on a broad expanse of grass, shot as if by someone hovering above. In the center of the photo was a little girl, curled on the grass like a pill bug, eyes squeezed shut in feigned sleep. She was wearing a ratty nylon slip, and her hair fanned out around her. She was maybe four years old. Avery’s age. I felt Avery’s absence like a blow to my throat.

  Barefoot, a Band-Aid on her shin. The detail was incredible. Meticulous. Each blade of grass, each strand of hair, her dirty fingernails, articulated.

  In the next photo, the girl had gotten up and was running now, across that large expanse, just a blur.

  I quickly sifted through the other prints. She was like a firefly, appearing illuminated in that white nightgown in some shots, and absent in others. I tried to imagine the photographer attempting to capture her. The failure of the shutter. Adjusting then shooting again.

  And then, it was twilight. I knew this golden hour. This magical moment before sunset when the world is imbued with a sort of honeyed light. For photographers, it is like a gift. Though the photo, like the others, was taken in black and white, it shimmered with that inimitable soft radiance. It was the same light I’d been seeking in that quiet corner of the duplex back in Queens. The same light that flooded the kitchen of the island house just before sunset.

  In this photo, the girl had stopped running and was standing where the grassy field met a line of trees. My hea
rt fluttered. Those were the trees dividing the Fergusons’ house from Pilar’s. She leaned her cheek against the rough bark of one of the trees, her eyes closed. I could almost hear her counting, “One, two, three . . .” It was a game of hide-and-go-seek, and she was It.

  But while this image itself was sweet, the innocence of a child’s game captured, it was what I saw in the background that stopped me.

  The man was standing in the distance, but he wasn’t looking at the child. Instead, he was looking directly at the camera. He had his finger pressed against his lips, telling whoever was holding the camera not to speak. Not to give him away.

  Ready or not, here I come!

  It’s amazing how similar he looked. How absolutely the same. Minus thirty-five years, but undeniable. It was Seamus.

  Hide-and-Go-Seek

  Clearly Seamus was hiding something, and now I was pretty sure I knew what. He definitely knew the woman who lived in Pilar’s house, well enough that he’d played hide-and-go-seek with her daughter. And Seamus didn’t strike me as much of a hide-and-go-seek kind of guy. I wondered if it was possible this child might actually be his child. But he had insisted the woman, the photographer, did not have any children.

  “Happy New Year!” a man said as he sat down next to me, and my hand flew to my chest.

  “Christ!” I said. “Sorry, you startled me.”

  He looked oddly familiar, but I realized it was just the beard. He looked like Gus.

  “You a photographer?” he asked, gesturing to the prints spread out in front of me.

  “Me?” I asked. “Oh, no. I’m just . . .” I trailed off, unsure how to explain exactly what it was I was doing with these pictures. I quickly gathered the prints into a pile and slipped them back into the manila envelope.

  “Have you lived here long?” the guy asked.

  “No,” I said. “I mean, I don’t really live here. I’m staying at a friend’s. I’m actually meeting her at the ferry dock in just a few.”

  My oatmeal had grown cold. I pushed the bowl to the side, waiting for the guy to open up his newspaper or something. But he was still grinning at me.

  “How about you? Do you live on the island?” I asked, uncomfortable at this sudden interest and attention.

  “No. I’m just visiting too.”

  “In January?” I laughed.

  “It’s kind of for work,” he said.

  “Oh, are you one of those bird people?” Pilar had told me there was a puffin colony here, and legions of birders descended on the island each winter.

  “No,” he said. “Bird people?”

  The waitress came over and started to refill my cup. “Actually, can I get my check?” The ferry would be arriving any minute now.

  “It was nice chatting with you . . . ?”

  “Mike,” he said, reaching out his hand.

  “Wyn.” His hand was warm. I started to put my coat back on.

  “Listen, maybe we can get a cup of coffee sometime?” he said.

  “I think we just did,” I said, gesturing to the coffee mugs on the counter.

  His cheeks reddened. “Well, maybe you could show me around the island?”

  Was he asking me out?

  “Sure,” I said, shrugging. “Here’s my cell number.” I took the pen I’d used to sign for my check and scratched my cell number on the napkin. What was I doing? He had a beard. But then I thought of Mia. Of moving on.

  “See you later,” I said and made my way outside.

  * * *

  I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see Pilar. When she drove off the dock back on the island, window rolled down, waving wildly at me, I felt a surge of something I can only describe as relief. I’d been feeling a prevailing sense of unease ever since I’d brought the photos up to Seamus. If he knew the photographer, why would he lie? Even if they’d had an affair, it was thirty-five years ago. And was the baby his? I thought of the infant in the photographer’s arms, the toothless gums, the agony of the scream. Of the infant in the periphery of those sad portraits of her in the house. But when I’d asked, he’d said there was no baby.

  I wondered if Fiona knew. And where the hell was the daughter now? Judging by the dates on the film canisters, she’d be just a little older than me.

  Pilar pulled into the parking spot next to the Honda and got out of the car, throwing herself into my arms. “Happy New Year!” she said and planted a fat, wet kiss on my lips. A few fellow passengers eyed her suspiciously.

  “Happy New Year,” I said, squeezing her hands. “How was your trip?”

  “Amazing,” she said. “A-ma-zing. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to the house.”

  And so we got into our separate cars and drove the half mile back to the house.

  I helped Pilar unload her suitcases from the trunk and carry them inside. She brought bags and bags of groceries in, as well as a case of wine. I had no idea when she’d had time to pick up all this stuff.

  She unfurled a bright red scarf from her neck and peeled off her coat. “Yay!! I am so happy to be here!”

  Already, I felt a million times less lonely.

  “How long can you stay?” I asked.

  “That’s the exciting news! I’m here for good now. Finally. I’m ready to get back to painting. It’ll be so nice to be working here with you.”

  I nodded, though the idea of returning to the birches was becoming more and more anxiety-inducing every day. I had just a couple of weeks left to finish the painting and get it shipped to Ginger’s house in Aspen. I hadn’t mentioned Ikea to Pilar.

  “How was the visit with Gus?” she asked, rummaging through one of the bags and pulling out a deli container of pomegranate seeds, a box of crackers, and a huge chunk of the stinky cheese she liked. She went to the cupboard and quickly assembled a tray. “And Avery. Oh, Avery! God, when does she come back? I miss her so much!”

  “Gus is good,” I said. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t tell her about what happened in the pool. Or about the way he’d been so cold at Christmas. I didn’t mention Mia.

  She pulled a bottle of champagne out of a bag, unscrewed the wire, and quietly twisted and popped the cork into her fist with a hand towel. The vapor drifted out and she poured us each a glass. “Happy New Year,” she said, her cheeks flushed. We clinked glasses and I took a sip. Definitely not the crappy shit we usually celebrated with.

  “Oh my God, I totally forgot to ask about the party last night. Did you go? Was the house incredible?”

  “So incredible,” I said. “But here’s the crazy thing. I think I figured out it was a woman who lived here, back in the seventies.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And I think maybe she had an affair with Seamus.”

  “Who’s Seamus?”

  “Ferguson. The mansion guy.” I felt like I was gossiping about a friend we shared instead of some woman from thirty-five years ago.

  “Wow!” she said.

  “I think they might have even had a daughter together.”

  “Holy shit. Then why did she live here?”

  “I’m pretty sure Seamus and that mean lady, Fiona, were already married.”

  “Was she like a kept woman or something?”

  It hadn’t dawned on me before. The idea their proximity wasn’t accidental. That maybe he’d put her up in this house, “kept” her here.

  “I found photos of her with her daughter. And one with him in it. At least it looks like he probably looked thirty-five years ago.”

  Pilar snapped her fingers, remembering something. “Oh my God. The photo! I totally forgot.”

  I was confused.

  She stood up and went to the dining room where I had set up my makeshift gallery. Her eyes widened and she walked from photo to photo, agape. “Oh my God,” she said. “Are these all from those rolls in the cellar?”

  I felt my stomach turn.

  “I was going to tell you I showed the photo to my manager. This one,” she said, pointing at the one of the hooker o
n the boardwalk.

  “What?”

  “I had it on my cell phone.”

  Nausea swept over me. My skin felt hot, like I might faint. “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

  “Why not?” She cocked her head at me. “These are amazing, Wyn.”

  “You just shouldn’t. She obviously didn’t want to have them developed. They weren’t meant to be seen. I found them in the basement, hidden away in a box.”

  “A labeled box,” she said. “She clearly intended to get them printed. Why else would she have gone to the trouble to keep them? Hell, to even take them in the first place?”

  I regretted showing her. Telling her. Sharing them.

  “Anyway, he was blown away. Like seriously bowled over. I told him there were dozens of undeveloped rolls. He said we should get them developed. If the rest of them were anything like the one I saw, we could maybe put a show together. Call it Epitaphs and Prophecies. Look at these. She was like some sort of savant.”

  “Savant?” I said. “You don’t know anything about her!”

  “Hey, why are you so upset?” she asked, reaching out for my hand, which I yanked away before she could touch it.

  I thought about how to explain. I felt proprietary about them, as though they had somehow been left behind for me to find. But there had also been something voyeuristic about looking at them, like peering into someone else’s life. Like her staring through that peephole in the carnival tent. They weren’t meant for anyone’s eyes. Maybe not even mine. I immediately felt overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. I should never have gotten them printed. Her secrets didn’t belong to me.

  “They don’t belong to us,” I said, shaking my head.

  Pilar laughed. “Well, you did kind of find them in my basement,” she said, singsongy.

  Suddenly all the confusion and remorse I’d been feeling seemed to go through some sort of chemical process, turning into indignation and fury. Every ounce of envy, of jealousy, I’d been feeling for the last year crashed through the floodgates I’d erected to hold them back.