But it wasn’t a photo of me; instead, it was the photograph I’d loved, the one of the lighthouse and the giant moon. Like me, Aunt Linda and Gwen were stunned by the image; they both agreed it should hang in my room where I could see it while lying in bed.
With the gifts opened, we visited for a little while, until Gwen announced that she wanted to go for a short walk. Aunt Linda joined her at the door and we watched while they bundled up.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” my aunt asked. “To help digest dinner before the rain comes back?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I think I’d just like to sit for a while, if that’s all right.”
She finished wrapping the scarf around her neck. “We won’t be gone long.”
After they left, I looked from the photograph to the glowing tree, to the candles, and then to Bryce. He was beside me on the couch, not wedged against me but close enough that if I leaned, our shoulders would brush against each other. Music continued to play on the radio and beneath that, barely detectable, was the sound of gentle swells lapping against the shoreline. Bryce was quiet; like me, he seemed content. I thought back to my first few weeks in Ocracoke—the fear and sadness and the ache of loneliness as I lay in my room, the notion that my friends would forget me, and the conviction that being away from home for the holidays was a wrong that could never be righted.
And yet as I sat beside Bryce with the photograph in my lap, I knew already that this had become a Christmas I would never forget. I thought about Aunt Linda and Gwen and Bryce’s family and the ease and kindness I’d found here, but mostly I thought about Bryce. I wondered what he was thinking, and when his eyes suddenly flashed toward me, I wanted to tell him that he’d inspired me in ways he probably couldn’t imagine.
“You’re thinking about something,” Bryce stated, and I felt my thoughts drift away like vapor, leaving only a single idea.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was.”
“Care to share?”
I glanced down at the photograph he’d given me before finally turning to meet his gaze.
“Do you think you could teach me photography?”
The Christmas Tree
Manhattan
December 2019
When the waitress came by with the dessert menu and an offer of coffee, Maggie used the opportunity to catch her breath. She’d related her story throughout their meal, barely noticing as her mostly untouched plate was cleared. Mark ordered a decaf while Maggie declined, still nursing her original glass of wine. There were only a handful of occupied tables left and conversations had dropped to a low murmur.
“Bryce taught you how to take pictures?” Mark exclaimed.
Maggie nodded. “And he introduced me to the rudimentary basics of Photoshop, which was relatively new back then. His mom taught me a lot of darkroom technique—dodging and burning and cropping, the importance of timing in the development process…essentially, the now-lost art of making prints the old-fashioned way. Between the two of them, it was like a crash course. He also predicted that digital photography was going to replace film and that the internet was going to change the world—lessons I took to heart.”
Mark raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”
“He was a smart guy.”
“Did you start taking pictures right away?”
“No. Bryce being Bryce, he wanted me to learn the way he had, so he came by the day after Christmas with a photography book, a thirty-five-millimeter Leica camera, the manual, and a light meter,” she said. “I was still technically on break, so I only had to finish the assignments I hadn’t yet completed. In any case, by then, I had actually begun to pull ahead in my classes, which left more time to learn photography. He showed me how to load film, the way various settings altered the photo, and how to work the light meter. He walked me through the manual, and the book he brought touched on composition, framing, and what to think about when attempting to take a photograph. It was overwhelming, obviously, but he went through it all step by step. After which he’d quiz me, of course.”
Mark smiled. “When did you take your first real photo?”
“Right before the new year. They were all black and white—it was much easier to develop negatives into contact sheets and make prints ourselves in Bryce’s darkroom. We didn’t need to send film to Raleigh for processing, which was good because I didn’t have a ton of money. Just what my mom had given me at the airport.”
“What did you shoot that first day?”