Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
EMMA
Iwake up to the sound of the water.
That’s the thing about sleeping in the bow of a houseboat—the ocean is right there, underneath you, around you, a constant low hum that used to keep me awake and now keeps me sane.
Aunt Dottie’s old bedroom has windows on three sides that come together in a point at the front, and in the morning the light pours in from every direction.
Blue and gold and shifting. It’s like waking up inside a prism.
This room took me three months to make mine.
When I moved in, it was still Dottie’s—her lavender bedspread, her collection of sea glass in a mason jar on the sill, her reading glasses on the nightstand like she’d just stepped out.
I kept the sea glass and the jar. I added my things around them—my camera bag hanging on the hook behind the door, my laptop on the quilt where I edit photos in bed at night, the kids’ school pictures in mismatched frames on the built-in shelf that runs along the port side.
A woven rug Lottie gave me as a housewarming gift that’s supposed to look like beach waves but looks more like a tie-dye accident. I love it anyway.
There’s a print above the bed that Dottie left—a black-and-white photograph of Twin Waves from the 1960s, taken from the water.
The marina is in it. The boardwalk. The pier where Levi proposed to Delilah.
It looks almost the same now. That’s what I love about this place.
It doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not.
The bow of the boat is the quietest part—the kids’ rooms and the bathroom are all behind me down the hallway, which means when I close my door I’m in my own little world.
Water on three sides. Sky through the windows.
The gentle rock of the hull that used to make me seasick and now feels like the ocean is breathing with me.
I keep my editing station on the built-in dresser under the starboard window—an external monitor propped against the wall, my hard drives stacked in a milk crate that Aidan decorated with stickers, and a mug that says WORLD’S MOST ADEQUATE PHOTOGRAPHER that Michelle gave me as a joke and I use every day because it keeps me honest.
This room is small. Everything on a houseboat is small.
But it’s mine. The first space that’s belonged to just me since I married Matt, and possibly the first space that’s belonged to just me ever, because before Matt there were roommates and before roommates there was my parents’ house and before that there was nothing.
Small is fine. Small is enough—especially with a view of the ocean, the sound of the water, and a lock on the door.
I reach for my phone. Six-fifteen. The houseboat is quiet, which means all three kids are still asleep, which means I have approximately twelve minutes of peace before Aidan discovers something that needs rescuing or Millie starts her morning reading routine or Jenna’s alarm goes off and she begins her daily war with the hot water tank.
Twelve minutes. I could edit photos. I could answer emails. I could review the shot list for the Mads maternity session at ten.
Instead, I lie here and look at the ceiling and think about Paul Spencer standing on the dock last night, hands in his pockets, watching the yacht catch the sunset. He didn’t know I could see him through the galley window. He stood there for a long time.
I think about that more than I should.
From down the hallway, a crash. Then Aidan’s voice: “I’m fine.”
Nothing good has ever followed “I’m fine” in this house. “I’m fine” preceded the discovery that Steve had gotten into the bathroom cabinet and was sitting in my moisturizer. “I’m fine” preceded the revelation that Aidan had tried to make toast by holding bread against a light bulb.
“What happened?” I call.
“Nothing.”
“What kind of nothing?”
“The kind where a shelf fell but everything is okay and Steve is fine and my lamp is mostly fine.”
“Mostly?”
“It still works. It’s just in two pieces now. Three pieces. The shade is separate.”
Millie’s voice, calm as a weather report: “The shelf fell because he was standing on it to look at the yacht through the porthole.”
“I wanted to see if anyone was on it.”
“At six in the morning?”
“Rich people wake up early. That’s how they get rich.”
I press my face into the pillow. This is my life. Broken lamps and crab escapes and a child who believes billionaires are early risers.
My phone buzzes. Mads.
Mads: I can’t see my feet and I’m pretty sure this baby is training for the Olympics. See you at ten. Asher is already panicking.
Me: Tell Asher this is a photo shoot, not a medical emergency.
Mads: I told him that. He packed a hospital bag anyway.
I laugh into my pillow. Then I get up, step over the camera bag, dodge the milk crate, and go make coffee before anyone else breaks anything.
The beach is perfect for maternity photos. The dunes give me texture. The sea oats catch the light. The water is calm this morning, that pale turquoise that photographs like a dream, and the sky is doing the thing it does in July where it’s so blue it looks fake.
Mads arrives in a white sundress that flows over her belly like she was poured into it.
She’s barefoot, hair down, glowing the way pregnant women glow in the third trimester—which is to say she looks stunning and also like she hasn’t slept in three days and her back hurts and she might cry or laugh at any moment and she can’t predict which.
“I look like a whale in a sundress,” she says.
“You look like a goddess of the sea and I’m going to make you cry with how beautiful these photos are. Now stop talking and let me work.”
Asher is standing ten feet away with a cooler, a folding chair, a beach umbrella, two bottles of water, and a bag of snacks.
“She needs to stay hydrated,” he says.
“I know.”
“And the sand might be hot.”
“I brought a mat.”
“And the sun —”
“Asher.” I point at the folding chair. “Sit down and look handsome. I’ll tell you when I need you.”
He sits. He does not relax. He watches Mads the way a lifeguard watches a swimmer—alert, tense, ready to launch into rescue mode at any moment. It’s the most adorable and completely unnecessary thing I’ve ever seen.
“He’s going to be hovering for the next two months, isn’t he,” Mads says, not as a question.
“Minimum.”
“I told him the baby’s not due until September. He said, and I quote, ‘babies don’t follow schedules.’ He read that in a book.”
“He read a book about babies?”
“He’s read four books about babies. He has a spreadsheet. He has a spreadsheet, Emma.”
“That’s actually kind of sweet.”
“It’s sweet until he starts timing how long I’ve been standing and asks if I need to elevate my feet. Which he will. Give it ten minutes.”
Eight minutes. It takes eight minutes.
“Mads, you’ve been standing for a while. Do you want to sit? I brought a folding chair. It has lumbar support.”
“Asher. I’m in the middle of a photo shoot.”
“You can look beautiful sitting down.”
“Nobody does maternity photos in a camping chair from Target.”
“It’s a very supportive camping chair.”
I shoot through the entire conversation.
Some of my best work happens when people forget the camera exists, and right now Mads and Asher have completely forgotten I’m here.
She’s rolling her eyes with so much affection it’s almost unbearable.
He’s offering her water for the third time.
The ocean is doing its thing behind them, and the baby kicks hard enough that Mads grabs Asher’s hand and puts it on the spot and his face—his face goes from worried husband to awestruck father in a single breath.
Click.
That one. That’s the other one they’ll print poster-size for the nursery.
I shoot while she talks. That’s the trick with maternity photos—don’t make them pose.
Let them move, let them laugh, let them be themselves.
Mads laughs with her whole body, one hand on her belly like she’s sharing the joke with the baby, and I catch it mid-laugh—chin up, hair catching the breeze, ocean behind her, the white dress blowing against her legs.
That’s the cover shot. The one that goes on her wall.
“Can I get Asher in a few?” I ask.
Asher stands up so fast the folding chair tips over.
“She didn’t mean right now,” Mads says, but he’s already walking over, brushing sand off his shorts, trying to look casual and failing completely.
“Where do you want me?”
“Behind her. Hands on the belly. Just be natural.”
He puts his hands on her belly like he’s handling a bomb.
“Natural, Asher.”
“This is natural.”
“You look like you’re defusing an explosive device.”
Mads takes his hands and rearranges them.
Lower on the belly, fingers spread, his arms wrapped around her from behind.
She leans back into his chest and his whole body changes—shoulders drop, jaw unclenches, chin rests on her hair.
There it is. That’s the real him. Not the guy with the spreadsheet and the hospital bag.
The guy who’s so in love with this woman he can’t think straight.
I shoot thirty frames in forty seconds.
“You can breathe now,” I tell him.
“I am breathing.”
Mads pats his cheek. “He holds his breath when he’s emotional. He did it at our wedding too. The pastor was ready to catch him at the altar.”
“It was a small venue. He was standing close.”
I’m laughing behind the camera, which is my favorite way to shoot—when the moment is so good that I’m part of it, not just recording it.
Grandma Hensley arrives twenty minutes into the session. She’s in a beach chair that Asher unfolds for her and a sun hat the size of a small satellite dish. She settles into the sand like a queen taking her throne.
“Tilt your chin, darling,” she tells Mads. “And Asher, stand up straight. You’re going to be in these photos for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not slouching.”
“You’re slouching adjacent. I can see the intention to slouch.”