Sunday, however, was different. Gwen came by with her blood pressure monitor and the stethoscope and asked the same questions Dr. Huge Hands normally did, but as soon as she left, I felt out of sorts. Not only wasn’t I in church, but aside from studying for tests, I was pretty much done with school, as I’d finished all of my assignments for the semester. Nor had Bryce left me with his camera, so photography was out as well. The batteries in my Walkman were dead—my aunt had told me she’d pick some up later—leaving me with nothing whatsoever to do. Though I suppose I could have gone for a walk, I didn’t want to leave the house. It was too bright, people were out and about, and my pregnancy was so noticeable that stepping outside was equivalent to having two giant neon arrows pointing toward my tummy, letting everyone know why I’d come to Ocracoke in the first place.
In the end, I finally called my parents. I’d had to wait until midmorning because of the time difference and though I don’t know what I was hoping to hear, my mom and dad didn’t make me feel much better. They didn’t ask about Bryce or my photography, and when I mentioned how far ahead I was in school, my mom barely waited a beat before telling me that Morgan had won yet another scholarship, this time from the Knights of Columbus. When they put my sister on the phone, she seemed tired, which left her quieter than usual. For the first time in a long time, it felt like an actual back-and-forth conversation, and unable to help myself, I told her a little about Bryce and my newfound love of the camera. She sounded almost dumbfounded and then asked when I was coming home, which left me reeling. How could she not have known anything about Bryce or that I’d been taking pictures, or that the baby was due on May 9? As I hung up the phone, I wondered whether my parents and Morgan ever spoke about me at all.
With nothing better to do, I also cleaned the house. Not just the kitchen and my room and my own laundry, but everything. I made the bathroom sparkle, I vacuumed and dusted, and I even scrubbed the oven, though that ended up making my back ache, so I probably didn’t do the greatest job on it. Still, because the house was small, I had hours remaining to kill before my aunt got home, so I went to sit on the porch.
The day was gorgeous, spring making its arrival felt. The sky was cloudless and the water shimmered like a tray of blue diamonds, but I didn’t really pay much attention. Instead, all I could think was that the day kind of felt like a waste, and I didn’t have enough days left in Ocracoke to ever waste one again.
*
Tutoring with Bryce now merely consisted of prepping for next week’s exams, the last big round before finals. Because I could do only so much studying, our sessions grew shorter; because we’d gone through pretty much every photograph in the file box, we worked our way through one photography book after another. I realized over time that while almost anyone could learn to frame and compose a photo if they practiced enough, at its best photography truly was an art. An excellent photographer somehow put their soul into their work, conveying a distinct sensibility and personal viewpoint through the picture. Two photographers shooting the same thing at the same time could produce startlingly different images, and I began to understand that the first step in taking an excellent photograph was the simple act of knowing oneself.
Despite the weekend fishing, or maybe because of it, our time together didn’t feel quite the same. Oh, we kissed and Bryce told me that he loved me, he still held my hand when we sat on the couch, but he wasn’t as…open as he’d seemed to be in the past, if that makes any sense. Occasionally I got the feeling that he was thinking of something else, something he didn’t want to share; there were even moments when he seemed to forget I was there at all. It didn’t happen often, and whenever he caught himself, he would apologize for his distraction, although he never explained what was preoccupying him. Yet after dinner, when we were on the porch saying goodbye, his demeanor was clingy, as though he was reluctant to let me go.
Despite my general aversion to leaving the house, we went for a walk on the beach on Friday afternoon. We were the only ones out, and we held hands as we strolled near the water’s edge. Waves rolled lazily toward the shore, pelicans skimmed the breakers, and though we brought the camera with us, we hadn’t yet taken any pictures. It made me realize that I wanted a photo of the two of us together, since we didn’t have a single one. But no one was around to take it, so I remained quiet and eventually we turned back toward the truck.
“What do you want to do this weekend?” I asked.