The Night Mark

“I had this baby book once,” Faye said. “Don’t ask me why, doesn’t matter. But it had a whole chapter on the stork symbol. Supposedly in Egyptian mythology, the stork was the symbol of ‘ba’ or the soul. While a person slept, their soul would fly in the form of a stork and come back to him. They could even carry the souls of the dead back to the body. I think. Read it a long time ago.”

“That stork is carrying some dead guy’s soul? I like babies better. Long as it’s not my baby.”

“Can you kill the engine? I don’t want to scare it away.”

Ty cut the engine and peered through the binoculars again. Faye lifted her camera to her eye but took no pictures. She was waiting. She sensed the second her shutter snapped the bird would fly off, and she would lose the shot. She had to get it right the first time.

The boat bobbed in the water, drifting ever closer to the pier. The shot lined up the way she wanted—the lighthouse filled the background, the pillar and the stork were left of center and the trees formed a frame on either side.

One...two...three...

Faye clicked the shutter and got off as many shots as she could in quick succession. Her instincts had been right. As soon as the clicking reverberated over the water, the bird took off. Faye couldn’t have planned it better. The wood stork soared into the sky, heading straight toward the sun fearless as Icarus, and she captured every last beat of its wings.

“Perfect,” she said, flipping the camera over. She scrolled through the pictures, creating a sort of flipbook as the bird tensed, stretched its wings and then launched itself into the sky. She scrolled backward and set the stork back down onto the pier like magic.

“Damn,” Ty said, glancing over Faye’s shoulder. “You’re good.” His shoulder butted against hers, and he seemed genuinely impressed by her work.

“I’m not bad.”

“You make much money doing this?” he asked.

“I didn’t become a photographer for the money. Nobody does, I promise.”

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a photojournalist. A modern Dorothea Lange.”

“Who?”

“You’ve seen her pictures. She took photographs of migrant workers during the Great Depression. People in bread lines, starving people, people driving across the country to get jobs picking fruit in California. When those pictures were published, it woke the country up. FDR’s New Deal might not have happened without her pictures. Before her the poor were seen as defective, as inferior. She took beautiful pictures of poor people, dignified pictures. People saw themselves in the suffering. They saw the humanity. One photographer, one woman, in the right place and the right time could change the world.”

“You gonna change the world?”

“That was the plan. Once upon a time. But every college kid thinks they can save the world.” She grinned at him, and he rolled his eyes. “But it’s a hard gig to get into, the changing-the-world gig. I settled for working at a tiny newspaper in Rhode Island out of college. Newspaper jobs are nearly impossible to get now. Good thing my ex-husband had money or I might have starved. Or worse, had to get a real job.”

She joked about it, but the truth was, she regretted letting Hagen’s money keep her at home when what she should have done was go back to work doing what she loved. But when they’d gotten married she’d been in no shape to save the world. She could barely get out of bed the morning of their wedding. So what was stopping her now?

“Dorothea Lange took pictures of people suffering from the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and now the Social Security Administration and Medicaid exist. I take pictures of lighthouses for desk calendars. So much for saving the world.”

“Hey,” Ty said, “your pictures could save that lighthouse. It’s a piece of history. That light saved lives, and you can return the favor. People see that lighthouse and they start to care about it. Out of sight, out of mind, right? So isn’t the reverse in sight, in mind? Maybe if somebody like you took pictures of these islands a hundred years ago, they wouldn’t be in the shape they are now. And even when that lighthouse is gone, when all the islands are gone, we’ll have your pictures. Better than nothing.”

“Right. Better than nothing.”

Faye smiled and looked at her pictures again. She couldn’t believe her luck. A dozen gorgeous shots, any one of them could grace the cover of the calendar. A home run on her first at bat. That never happened.

Ty started the boat’s engine up again. With a relaxed, practiced air, he steered them around the ruins of the pier and back into open water.

“Where to now?” Faye asked, slipping her camera back into her bag.

“Dinner. Oysters if you can handle it.”

“I can handle oysters. You buying?” she teased. She’d never make a college kid buy her dinner.

“How about this? I’ll give you the oysters in exchange for the clam.”

Faye stared at him. “That is the grossest thing anyone has ever said to me. I’m almost impressed. No, I am impressed. Good job.” She slapped him on the back.

“Thank you, baby. I’ll be here all week.”

Faye was too amused and too happy to be offended. Not that Ty could offend her if he tried. After four years in a bad marriage, one dirty pussy joke couldn’t begin to ding her armor. Oh, but that smile of Ty’s, that sweet, sexy smile could. It wriggled its way through the chinks in her chain mail.

Tonight she was going to make very bad decisions.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Faye and Ty both had a little to drink at dinner and then a lot to drink back at the Church Street house. So it wasn’t that much of a rude awakening to find Ty still in her bed when she woke up around 3:00 a.m.

He lay on his stomach, facing away from her, looking so painfully young and terribly sweet. She forced down any guilt she might have felt. This hadn’t been his first time, and it wouldn’t be his last. Might not even be his last time tonight. She’d almost told him during their first round that it was the best sex she’d had since getting married, but she kept that comment to herself. After all, Hagen had set a low bar.

Faye slipped out of bed, put on her bathrobe and went to the bathroom. Ty stirred as she slid back in next to him.

“Just me,” she whispered as Ty rolled over to face her.

“Did I fall asleep? Sorry. Your bed is bigger than mine.”

“I don’t mind. Just be careful sneaking out. I don’t want to get in trouble with Miss Lizzie. She seems a little on the religious side.”

“She makes Mother Teresa look like Miley Cyrus.” Ty slid from bed and started gathering his clothes. She rolled over onto her side to watch him dress in the dark. “Luckily she sleeps so hard we could knock the headboard through the wall and she wouldn’t wake up.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience.”

“Did you think I was a virgin?” he asked, crawling over the bed to her.

“No, but I was.”

He laughed softly and kissed her. “Hope you had fun,” he said.

“I did.”

“You sure?” he asked. Faye blushed in the dark. She hadn’t been able to come during the sex. She’d tried, but it was going to take a while before she figured how to use her body for anything other than baby making again. But Ty didn’t need to hear that.

“I did have fun,” she said. “Don’t take my lack of orgasms personally. I’m a little out of practice.”

One more kiss and one more smile. “Practice makes perfect.”

On his way out of her room she stopped him with a whispered question.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s the name of the island with the lighthouse again? Not Bride Island, the real name? Sea Island?”

“Seaport Island.”