Chapter 7 #2
I glance back at Justin—crouched at the dock edge with a net, fishing his product out one scoop at a time.
His neck is red. His jaw is doing the Spencer thing.
He's muttering about dock carts and liability, but he's also—and I might be imagining this—glancing toward the houseboat where a redhead just walked away from him without flinching.
Oh no, I think. Not another one.
Harold appears at my elbow. “Interesting morning.”
“Your son's shrimp is in the water.”
“Both my sons are.” His face is lit with strategic delight. “Metaphorically speaking. I built that marina with my bare hands and a bad attitude. Paul got the attitude. Justin got the hands. Neither one got my charm, which is a tragedy.”
The family session runs long—a toddler who won't sit still and a golden retriever who keeps photobombing with driftwood. The light is good, though. The toddler gives me a genuine laugh right as the sun hits his face, and I catch it—mouth open, eyes crinkled, pure joy. That's the shot.
This is the part of my job I love. Seeing people. Making them visible.
The irony has never been lost on me.
I pack up my gear and drive back to the marina with the windows down, the salt air pulling at my hair, the shrimp in a cooler in my trunk.
The road between the beach and the marina cuts through a stretch of maritime forest—live oaks draped in Spanish moss, the canopy so thick the light goes green underneath.
Then the trees break and the water appears, flat and silver in the afternoon heat, and the marina materializes at the end of the gravel road like a postcard someone left in the sun too long.
Weathered wood. Boats rocking. The dock shimmering in the heat haze.
The houseboat smells like sunscreen and boy sweat when I get back.
Lottie has the twins drawing apology cards for Justin at the fold-down table.
Olson's features a shrimp with a speech bubble that says “Sorry about my friends.” Mitch's features a boat surrounded by stars, which Lottie says represents Justin's vessel being restored to its former glory.
“Did he say anything after I left?” Lottie asks, folding a dish towel with unnecessary precision.
“He was too busy netting shrimp and glaring.”
“He glares at everything. That's not specific.”
“This was a specific glare. Aimed at a redhead who told him to net some more.”
She folds the towel again. It doesn't need folding. “He's very intense.”
“He's a Spencer. They don't come in mild.”
She's quiet for a beat. Then, carefully, like she's testing a bruise: “He didn't yell at the boys. You noticed that, right? He was furious, but he kept his voice down. Ryan was the same way, except with Ryan it was because he never cared enough to raise it. Justin cared. He just... held it.”
My chest does a squeeze. Because she's right. And because she noticed. And because Lottie noticing the difference between a man who controls his anger and a man who doesn't have any is the first sign I've seen that she might be ready to believe those two things aren't the same.
The smell fills the galley as I start cooking—garlic and butter and shrimp curling pink in the pan.
The Carolina heat is finally breaking outside, evening air drifting through the open windows warm and heavy with honeysuckle.
Lottie opens the wine. Millie sets the table on the deck.
Aidan provides commentary on shrimp anatomy while I devein.
“The vein isn't really a vein,” he says. “It's their digestive tract.”
“Thank you, Aidan.”
“You're basically gutting them.”
“I am making dinner.”
“With their guts.”
“Without their guts. That's the whole point.”
Jenna drifts out onto the deck as the scampi comes together. “Was Finch there this morning?”
I don't look up from the pan. “He's there every morning, Jen.”
“I was asking about today. Specifically.”
“Yes, Jenna. He was there.”
“Cool.”
“Mm-hm.”
From the table, Millie doesn't look up from her book. “She watched him tie off the boat from the deck this morning. She thought I didn't notice.”
Jenna's face goes the color of the shrimp in my pan. “Millie. Seriously?”
“You were standing at the rail for ten minutes.”
“I was looking at the sunrise.”
“The sun rises in the east. The shrimp boat is north.”
The scampi is incredible. Fresh off the boat changes everything—sweeter, firmer, tasting like the actual ocean instead of a freezer bag. I feel a flash of gratitude toward a grumpy shrimper who handed me his best catch and grunted his way through a compliment.
The boys eat like they haven't seen food in weeks.
Millie has seconds, which is rare. Jenna eats without her phone on the table, which is basically a standing ovation.
The evening air wraps around us—warm, thick, smelling like honeysuckle and the outgoing tide.
Cicadas are starting up in the live oaks behind the boathouse, that rising buzz that means the day is finally letting go.
I lean back and look out at the marina. The water is going dark and still, catching the last light in long silver streaks.
I think about the family I photographed today. The toddler's laugh. The way his parents looked at him like he was the most remarkable thing in any room. I captured that—froze it, made it permanent.
Matt never asked to see my photos. Not once in twelve years. He'd walk through the room on his way to the garage without glancing at my screen. I spent a decade making other people visible and going home to a man who looked right through me.
My eyes sting. I blink it back and start cleaning up.
I'm rinsing the pan at the galley sink when the red glow catches my eye through the window.
The port running light is on.
Paul has been on my case about it for weeks. I kept telling him I'd handle it. Three weeks of promises later, it's still dark.
It's glowing red now, steady and bright, reflecting off the water below the bow.
I didn't fix it.
I dry my hands and walk to the bow. Crouch down. The housing has been cleaned. The bulb is new. The wiring has been neatly reconnected and sealed with a heat-shrink connector.
Paul fixed my running light. Didn't ask. Didn't mention it.
I sit back on my heels. The evening air is warm on my bare arms, carrying the smell of salt and the low hum of insects from the marsh.
His boat is dark. Ten feet from my bow. He could have done this anytime today—slipped over while the houseboat was quiet, fixed it in ten minutes, gone back to his side without a word.
He didn't leave a note. Didn't send an invoice. Didn't mention it at all, which means he wasn't doing it to prove a point or win the argument. He just did it because it needed doing.
My hands are shaking. Not a little, but a lot. I press them against my thighs and they won't stop, so I press harder until my knuckles ache.
He fixed my light.
That's all he did. He noticed something was broken and he repaired it without being asked, without making me explain why it mattered.
My throat is going tight in a way that swallowing doesn't help.
Matt wouldn't have seen the bulb was out in the first place. The whole houseboat could have drifted to sea as long as the wifi reached the garage. Twelve years of marriage taught me to stop asking, to stop noticing the things that stayed broken because noticing just made it worse.
Paul noticed weeks ago and nagged me about it until it became a running joke between us, and then he stopped nagging and just fixed it, and I don't know what to do with the feeling expanding in my chest right now except sit on the bow of my houseboat in the dark and let it be there.
My chest aches. Not the bad kind. The startled, almost-painful kind that happens when a locked door opens and you weren't ready for what's on the other side.
I go back inside. Pick up my camera. Scroll through today's shots and pause on one I took without thinking: the marina at golden hour. The dock stretching toward the boathouse. And in the background, barely visible, the office window. A silhouette at a desk.
I know that shape. The set of those shoulders.
I took a picture of Paul without meaning to.
I put the camera down. Go out on the deck. The fairy lights are on and the water is dark and ten feet away, a grumpy man fixed my running light because he couldn't stand knowing it was broken.
I stand there for a long time, holding my empty mug, watching the red glow reflect on the water.
A bulb and a connector and ten minutes of his afternoon.
Nobody's done a small thing for me in a very long time. And the terrifying part—the part that makes my hands shake and my breath catch and my whole carefully constructed independence feel like a house of cards—is that I want him to do it again.