Mark leaned forward, his elbows on his knees as he stared up at her. “If I could visit one place in the world, what do you think that should be?” Light flickered in his eyes, making him appear almost childlike.
“A lot of people have asked me that question, but there’s no single answer. It depends on where you are in life.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“If you’ve been stressed and working a zillion hours for months, maybe the best place to go would be a tropical beach somewhere. If you’re in search of the meaning of life, maybe go hiking in Bhutan or visit Machu Picchu or attend mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. Or maybe you just want to see animals, so you travel to Botswana or northern Canada. I can say that I see all those places differently—and I photographed them differently—based partly on my own life experiences at the time.”
“I get that,” he said. “Or at least I think I do.”
“Where would you want to go? If you could only see one place?”
He reached for his eggnog and took a sip. “I like your Botswana idea. I’d love to go on safari, see the wild animals. I might even be convinced to bring a camera, though I’d stick with the automatic setting.”
“I can give you a few photography pointers if you’d like. And who knows? Maybe you’ll have your own gallery, too, one day.”
He laughed. “Not a chance.”
“Going on safari is a good choice. Maybe think about it for your honeymoon?”
“I hear it’s kind of expensive. But I’m confident we’ll get there one day. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and all that.”
“Like your parents and their trip to Israel?”
“Exactly,” he said.
She leaned back in her chair, finally beginning to feel closer to normal again. She wasn’t yet warm enough to take off her jacket, but the bone-deep chill had passed. “I know your dad is a pastor, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked about your mom.”
“She’s a child psychologist. She and my dad met when they were both getting their PhDs at Indiana.”
“Does she teach or practice?”
“She’s done a bit of both in the past, but now she mainly practices. She also assists the police when necessary. She’s an on-call specialist if there’s a child in trouble, and because she often serves as an expert witness, she testifies in court quite a bit.”
“She sounds smart. And very busy.”
“She is.”
Though it took some effort, Maggie tucked her leg up, trying to get more comfortable. “I’m guessing that in your house, there wasn’t a lot of shouting when emotions were high. Since your dad’s a pastor and your mom is a psychologist?”
“Never,” he agreed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard either of them raise their voice. Unless they were cheering for me in hockey or baseball, I mean. They prefer talking things out, which sounds great, but it can also be frustrating. It’s no fun to be the only one shouting.”
“I can’t imagine that you ever shouted.”
“I didn’t do it much, but when I did, they’d ask me to lower the volume so we could have a reasonable discussion, or they’d tell me to go to my room until I calmed down, after which we’d have the reasonable discussion anyway. It didn’t take long before I understood that shouting doesn’t work.”
“How long have your parents been married?”
“Thirty-one years,” he said.
She did the mental calculation. “They’re a little older, then, right? Since they met when they were getting their PhDs?”
“They’ll both turn sixty next year. My mom and dad sometimes talk about retiring, but I’m not sure that day will ever come. They both love what they do too much.”
She recalled her earlier reflections about Morgan. “Did you ever wish you had siblings?”
“Not until recently,” he said. “Being an only child was all I knew. I think my parents wanted more kids, but it just didn’t work out. And being an only child sometimes has its advantages. It’s not like I had to make compromises when it came to what movie to see, or what to ride first at Disney World. But now that I’m with Abigail, and I see how close she is to her siblings, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like.”
After Mark trailed off, neither of them said anything for a short spell. She had the sense that he wanted to hear more about her time in Ocracoke, but realized she wasn’t quite ready to start just yet. Instead: