“Because of Bryce?”
“He’s my tutor.”
“And he’s teaching you photography, too?”
“His mom got him into it. It’s been a lot of fun and I think I might keep it up when I get back home.”
“Do you ever go to his house?”
I was still wondering why she didn’t seem interested in my new passion. “Sometimes.”
“Are his parents home when you visit?”
With that, I suddenly understood where all this was coming from. “His mom is always there. His brothers are usually there, too.”
“Oh,” she said, but in that single syllable, I could hear her relief.
“Would you like to see some of the photos I’ve taken?”
She walked a few steps without saying anything. “It’s great you found a hobby, but don’t you think you should be concentrating on school instead? Maybe use your free time to study on your own?”
“I do study on my own,” I said, hearing the defensiveness in my tone. “You saw my grades, and I’m already way ahead this semester, too.” From the corner of my eye, I could see the waves rolling steadily toward the shore, as though trying to erase our footprints.
“I’m just wondering if you’re spending too much time with Bryce, instead of working on yourself.”
“What do you mean by working on myself? I’m doing okay in school, I’ve found a cool hobby, I’ve even made friends…”
“Friends? Or friend?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t a lot of people here my age.”
“I’m just worried about you, Margaret.”
“Maggie,” I reminded her, knowing my mom only used Margaret when she was upset. “And you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Have you forgotten why you’re here?”
Her comment stung, reminding me that no matter what I did, I would always be the daughter who let her down. “I know why I’m here.”
She nodded, saying nothing, her eyes darting downward. “You’re barely showing.”
My hands went automatically to my belly. “The sweater you bought hides a lot.”
“Are those maternity pants?”
“I had to get them last month.”
She smiled, but it couldn’t hide her sadness. “We miss you, you know.”
“I miss you, too.” And in that moment, I did, even if she sometimes made it very hard to do.
* * *
My interactions with my father were just as awkward. He spent nearly all of Thursday afternoon with my aunt, the two of them either sitting at the kitchen table or standing out back, near the water’s edge. Even at dinner, he didn’t say much to me other than “Can you pass the corn?” Tired from their trip, or maybe just stressed out of their minds, my parents left for their hotel not long after dinner was over.
When they returned the following morning, they saw Bryce and me working at the table. After a quick introduction—Bryce was his normal charming self while my parents studied him with reserved expressions—they sat in the living room, speaking quietly while we went back to work. Even though I was ahead in my assignments, their presence while I was studying made me nervous anyway. To say the whole thing felt weird was an understatement.
Bryce picked up on the tension, so we both agreed to make it an early day and finished by lunch. Aside from my aunt’s shop, there were only a few places to eat, and my parents and I ended up at the Pony Island Restaurant. I’d never been there, and though it served only breakfast food, my parents didn’t seem to mind. I had French toast, as did my mom, while my dad had eggs and bacon. Afterward, they poked around my aunt’s shop while I went back to the house to nap. By the time I got up, my mom was talking to Aunt Linda, who’d already returned to the house. My dad was drinking coffee on the porch and I went out to join him, sitting in the other rocker. My first thought was that he looked as low as I’d ever seen him.
“How are you doing, Dad?” I asked, pretending I hadn’t noticed.
“I’m okay,” he said. “How about you?”
“I’m kind of tired, but that’s normal. According to the book, anyway.”
His eyes flashed to my stomach, then up again. I adjusted myself in the chair, trying to get more comfortable. “How’s work? Mom says you’ve had a lot of overtime lately.”
“There are a lot of orders for the new 777-300,” he said, as though everyone shared his expertise in Boeing aircraft.
“That’s good, right?”
“It’s a living,” he grunted. He took a sip of his coffee. I shifted in my seat again, wondering if my bladder would start screaming at me, giving me an excuse to go back into the house. It didn’t.
“I’ve enjoyed learning photography,” I ventured.
“Oh,” he said. “Good.”
“Would you like to see some of my photographs?”
It took him a few seconds to answer. “I wouldn’t know what I was seeing.” In the silence after his answer, I could see the steam rising from his coffee before quickly vanishing, a temporary mirage. Then, as if knowing it was his turn to move the conversation forward, he sighed. “Linda says you’ve been a big help around the house.”
“I try,” I said. “She gives me chores, but that’s okay. I like your sister.”
“She’s a good lady.” He seemed to be trying hard to avoid looking in my direction. “I still don’t know why she moved here.”
“Have you asked her?”
“She said that once she and Gwen left the order, they wanted to live a quiet life. I thought convents were quiet.”
“Were you close growing up?”
“She’s eleven years older than me, so she took care of me and our sisters after school when I was little. But she moved away when she was nineteen and I didn’t see her again for a long time. She’d write me letters, though. I always liked her letters. And after your mom and I were married, she came out to visit a couple of times.”
It was as much as my dad ever said in one go, which kind of startled me.
“I only remember her visiting us once, when I was little.”
“It wasn’t easy for her to get away. And after she moved to Ocracoke, she couldn’t.”
I stared at him. “Are you really doing okay, Dad?”
It took him a long time to answer. “I’m just sad is all. Sad for you, sad for our family.”
I knew he was being honest, but just like the things my mom had said, his words made me ache.
“I’m sorry, and I’m doing my best to make it right.”
“I know you are.”
I swallowed. “Do you still love me?”
For the first time, he faced me, and his surprise was evident. “I’ll always love you. You’ll always be my baby girl.”
Peering over my shoulder, I could see my mom and my aunt at the table. “I think Mom is worried about me.”
He turned away again. “Neither of us wanted this for you.”
After that, we sat without speaking until my dad finally rose from his seat and went back inside for another cup of coffee, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
* * *
Later that evening, after my parents had gone back to the hotel, I sat in the living room with my aunt. Dinner had been awkward, with comments about the weather interspersed with long silences. Aunt Linda was sipping tea in the rocker while I lounged on the couch, my toes tucked under the pillow.
“It’s like they aren’t even happy to see me.”
“They’re happy,” she said. “It’s just that seeing you is harder for them than they thought it would be.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not the same girl who left them in November.”
“Of course I am,” I said, but as soon as the words came out, I knew they weren’t true. “They didn’t want to see my photographs,” I added.
Aunt Linda set her tea off to the side. “Did I tell you that when I worked with young women like you, we had a painting room set aside? With watercolors? The
re was a big window that overlooked the garden and nearly all the girls gave painting a try while they were there. Some of them even grew to love it, and when their parents visited, many wanted to show off their work. More often than not the parents said no.”
“Why?”
“Because they were afraid they’d see the artist’s reflection, instead of their own.”
She didn’t explain further, and later that night, while cuddling with Maggie-bear in bed, I thought about what she’d said. I imagined pregnant girls in a bright, airy room in the convent with wildflowers blooming outside. I thought about how they felt as they lifted a brush, adding color and wonder to a blank canvas and feeling—if only for a brief moment—that they were like other girls their age, unburdened by past mistakes. And I knew that they felt the same way I did when I stared through the lens, that finding and creating beauty could illuminate even the darkest periods.
I understood then what my aunt had been trying to tell me, just as I knew my parents still loved me. I knew they wanted the best for me, now and in the future. But they wanted to see their own feelings in the photos, not mine. They wanted me to see myself in the same way they did.
My parents, I knew, wanted to see disappointment.
* * *
My epiphany didn’t lift my spirits, even if it helped me understand where my parents were coming from. Frankly, I was disappointed in me, too, but I’d tried to lock that feeling away into some unused corner of my brain because I didn’t have time to beat myself up in the way I once had. Nor did I want to. For my parents, almost everything I was doing had its roots in my mistake. And every time there was an empty seat at the table, every time they passed by my unused room, every time they received copies of grades that I earned across the country, they were reminded of the fact that I’d temporarily broken up the family while shattering the illusion that—as my dad had put it—I was still their baby girl.
Nor did their visit improve. Saturday was pretty much the same as the day before except that Bryce didn’t come by. We explored the village again, which left them about as bored as I expected. I took a nap, and though I could feel the baby kicking whenever I lay down, I made sure not to tell them. I read and did homework assignments in my room with the door closed. I also wore my baggiest sweatshirts and a jacket, doing my best to pretend that I looked the same as I always had.
My aunt, thank God, carried the conversation whenever tension began to creep in. Gwen too. She joined us for dinner on Saturday night, and between the two of them, I barely had to speak at all. They also avoided any mention of Bryce or photography; instead, Aunt Linda kept the focus on family, and it was interesting to discover that my aunt knew even more about my other aunts and cousins than my parents. As she did with my father, she wrote to all of them regularly, which was yet another thing I didn’t know about her. I guessed that she probably wrote the letters when she was at the shop, since I’d never seen her put pen to paper.
My dad and Aunt Linda also shared stories about growing up in Seattle when the city still had plenty of undeveloped land. Once in a while, Gwen talked about her life in Vermont, and I learned that her family had six prized cows that produced a rich butter used in some upscale restaurants in Boston.
I appreciated what Aunt Linda and Gwen were doing, yet even as I listened, I found my thoughts wandering to Bryce. The sun was going down and had my parents not been here, he and I would have begun playing around with the camera, trying to capture the perfect light of the golden hour. In those moments, I realized, my world shrank to nothing but the task at hand while expanding exponentially at the same time.
I wanted more than anything for my parents to share in my interest; I wanted them to be proud of me. I wanted to tell them that I’d begun to imagine a career as a photographer. But then the subject turned to Morgan. My parents talked about her grades and her popularity and the violin and the scholarships she’d received to Gonzaga University. When I saw the way their eyes lit up, my gaze dropped, and I wondered whether my parents would ever glow with pride in the same way when talking about me.
* * *
On Sunday, they finally left. They were flying out in the afternoon, but we all caught the morning ferry, went to mass, and had lunch before we said our goodbyes in the parking lot. My mom and dad hugged me but neither of them shed a tear, even as I felt my own forming. After pulling back, I wiped my cheeks, and for the first time since they’d arrived, I felt something resembling sympathy from both of my parents.
“You’ll be home before you know it,” my mom assured me, and though all my dad did was nod, at least he looked at me. His expression was mournful as usual, but more than that, I detected helplessness.
“I’ll be okay,” I said, continuing to swipe at my eyes, and though I meant it, I’m not sure either of them believed me.
* * *
Bryce appeared at the door later that evening. I’d asked him to come over, and though it was chilly, we sat on the porch, in the same spot that my dad and I had a couple of days earlier.
I poured out the story of my parents’ visit, leaving nothing out, and Bryce didn’t interrupt. By the end, I was crying and he scooted his chair closer to mine.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t the visit you wanted it to be,” he murmured.
“Thanks.”
“Is there anything I can do to help you feel better?”
“No.”
“I could drop Daisy off and you could snuggle with her tonight.”
“I thought Daisy wasn’t supposed to get on the furniture.”
“She’s not. So how about I make you some hot chocolate instead?”
“That’s okay.”
For the first time since I’d known him, he reached over and placed his hand on mine. He gave it a squeeze, his touch electric.
“It might not mean anything, but I think you’re amazing,” he said. “You’re smart and you have a great sense of humor and obviously, you already know how beautiful you are.”
I felt myself blush at his words, thankful for the darkness. I could still feel his hand on mine, radiating warmth up my arm. He seemed in no rush to let go.
“You know what I was thinking about?” I asked. “Right before you got here?”
“I have no idea.”
“I was thinking that even though my parents were here for only three days, it seemed like an entire month.”
He chuckled before meeting my eyes again. I felt his thumb teasing the back of my hand, featherlight.
“Do you want me to come by tomorrow to tutor? Because if you need a day to unwind, I completely understand.”
Avoiding Bryce, I knew, would make me feel even worse. “I want to keep going on my reading and my assignments,” I said, surprising even myself. “I’ll be okay after I get some sleep.”
His expression was gentle. “You know they love you, right? Your parents, I mean. Even if they aren’t too good at showing it?”
“I know,” I answered, but strangely, I found myself suddenly wondering whether he was talking about them, or about himself.
* * *
As we eased into February, Bryce and I fell back into our regular routine. It wasn’t quite the same as before, though. For starters, something deeper had taken root when I’d sensed he wanted to kiss me and had grown even stronger when he’d taken my hand. Though he didn’t touch me again—and certainly didn’t attempt a kiss—there was a new charge between us, a low-level and insistent hum that was almost impossible to ignore. I’d be doing a geometry problem and I’d catch him staring at me in a way that seemed unfamiliar, or he’d hand me the camera and hold it for an instant too long, making me pull, and I felt like he was trying to keep his emotions in check.
Meanwhile, I was sorting through my own feelings, especially right before drifting off to sleep. I’d get to the point of no return—that brief and hazy period where consciousness blends with the unconscious and things get swimmy—when all of a sudden, I’d picture him on the ladder or remember the way his tou
ch had set my nerves on fire, and I’d immediately wake up.
My aunt, too, seemed to notice that my relationship with Bryce had…evolved. He was still having dinner with us two or three times a week, but instead of leaving immediately afterward, Bryce would sit with us in the living room for a while. Despite the lack of privacy—or maybe because of it—he and I began to develop our own secret nonverbal communication. He’d gently raise an eyebrow and I’d know that he was thinking the same thing that I was, or when I impatiently ran a hand through my hair, Bryce knew I wanted to change the subject. I thought we were pretty subtle about the whole thing, but Aunt Linda wasn’t easily fooled. After he’d finally gone home, she’d say something that would make me reflect on what she was really trying to tell me.
“I’m going to miss having you around here once you leave,” she’d say casually, or “How are you sleeping? Pregnancy can have all kinds of effects on hormones.”
I’m pretty sure it was her way of reminding me that falling for Bryce wasn’t in my best interest, even if she wouldn’t say it directly. The net effect was that I would reflect on her comments after acknowledging their underlying truth: my hormones were running wild and I was going to be leaving soon.
And yet, the heart is a funny thing, because even though I knew there was no future for Bryce and me, I would lie awake at night listening to the gentle lapping of sea against the shoreline, knowing that a big part of me simply didn’t care.
* * *
If I could point to a single notable change in my habits since I’d arrived in Ocracoke, it was my diligence when it came to schoolwork. By the second week of February, I was completing March assignments and I’d done well on all of my quizzes and exams. Simultaneously, I continued to grow more confident with the camera, and my proficiency was steadily improving. Chalk it up to our narrow focus on schoolwork and photography, but Valentine’s Day was just…okay.
I’m not saying that Bryce forgot about it. He showed up that morning with flowers, and though I was momentarily touched, I quickly noticed he’d brought two bouquets, one for me and one for my aunt, which sort of diminished their impact. I later confirmed that he’d gotten his mother flowers as well. All of which left me wondering whether everything that was happening between us was simply a hormone-induced fantasy.
The Wish Page 21
