10. Saturday #2
Abby came out of the hotel next, looking radiant in a flowing white dress, but immediately her long veil began to blow around her face like an attacking seagull that she had to fend off.
She started laughing, and Sarah turned her camera to Paul to catch him laughing, too.
As soon as Abby made it down the aisle, Abby’s sister Laura ran over to remove the aggressively swirling veil, and the sisters laughed together as it wrapped around them both.
Sarah got a perfect shot of the two of them, the veil raised around them like a fingering mist, smiling at each other.
The image made her emotional even as she took it; sometimes you knew when you had a perfect shot.
Then the vows began and Sarah stepped back to let Ren take over.
He was subtle about it, she noticed. She only heard his camera click every twenty or thirty seconds, but at perfectly chosen moments: right when Paul and Abby exchanged rings, right when they gazed lovingly at each other, right when they kissed.
His journalism training must be kicking in.
He knew how to capture the key moments in a story.
As the ceremony ended, Sarah slipped to the back of the aisle to grab a few last shots of the newlyweds grinning and walking towards her.
Then she hurried back to her mother’s side; her mother was talking to an elderly woman who was a former neighbor of Abby’s about the likelihood of a storm blowing in.
Sarah helped both women across the grass as they walked towards the hotel.
“You know there’s another photographer,” Maureen observed as Sarah walked between them.
“Yes, I know,” Sarah said.
“He’s very handsome,” said her mother.
“True,” Sarah agreed.
“I never trust handsome men,” said the elderly woman who was walking with them.
“They aren’t reliable,” Maureen replied decisively, as if she had a long history of being disappointed by dashing playboys.
Sarah glanced back to where Ren had paused to take a photo of a sash of white fabric that was drifting dramatically from the altar towards the sea. As she watched, the cloth detached from the altar and whipped upwards towards the sky. Ren kept shooting.
She felt a pang of regret that she had missed the shot, and another thimbleful of anger that Ren had gotten it. It made her want to kick her shoe against the wall like a toddler. Ren wasn’t supposed to be here. And he kept smiling at her.
He approached her a couple of minutes later in the hotel’s lobby, which was already set up for a cocktail hour.
“I can cover this if you want a break,” he said quietly.
Sarah glanced around. Paul and Abby were standing in a corner, having decided to skip over the formal photos because of the wind and instead chatting and laughing with friends.
“I’m okay,” Sarah said. “Shooting gives me an excuse to take a break from my mother. She’s very anxious.”
“In that case,” he said, “you shoot for a while and I’ll get you a drink.”
He gave her another of his charming smiles and walked over to the bartender who was standing in one corner of the lobby pouring wine.
She remembered the last time he’d brought her a drink, the last time he had treated her like a date.
A part of her wondered what the explanation would have been for that night—the explanation he had tried to give months later—but she also desperately didn’t want to know.
She had no interest in kissing him now. That felt like a relief.
Paul walked past her and glanced at her camera. “Hey! You’re off the hook for the night.”
“No need,” Sarah said. “I’m having fun taking pictures.”
“Well, if you get tired, please feel free to stop.”
Ren returned with a glass of red wine—of course he remembered what she liked—and leaned against the wall next to her as she took a sip.
“Beautiful spot,” he said as the first rays of sunset stretched through the windows. “I may step out and get some shots of the location.”
“Be my guest,” Sarah agreed. “I’ll stay here in case anyone starts dancing on tables.”
“Or doing complicated pre-choreographed dances.”
“Drunkenly fist-fighting,” she added.
“Confessing their decades-long crush on the bride.”
“I’ll get video for that one,” Sarah agreed.
He headed outside and she glared at his back. He was still so fun. She took a large sip of wine and then raised her camera again.
The evening continued without a hitch: a low-key cocktail hour transitioning into a sit-down meal, the bride and groom coming around to chat with guests.
Ren and Sarah took turns shooting and circling the room.
Ren spoke French with Lisette’s brother for a while and then chatted with Jasmine and Lucas.
Sarah kept her mother occupied, then got some candid shots of Paul’s Newfoundland improv friends as they laughed with Paul’s Toronto acting friends.
Watching Abby and her sister Laura from across the room, Sarah tried to identify why she was having such an intense set of feelings.
One part of the answer was simple, she realized.
Abby and Laura were more or less her age.
And they were in love. She had almost forgotten that such a thing was possible.
Love seemed so out of reach after her divorce, but watching the two sisters, she couldn’t help but be swept up in a small wave of hope.
When it came time for toasts at the end of the meal, Paul toasted his lovely bride for helping him to laugh again. Then Abby stood up to join him.
“And folks, we have something shocking to confess to you,” Abby said. Sarah raised her camera, ready for something big. Were Laura and Ollie going to announce their engagement?
“For those of you who don’t know, Abby and I actually got married some time ago at City Hall,” Paul said. “This whole ceremony is a lie.”
A few people jokingly booed.
“We did it for green card purposes,” Paul added. “So take it up with the government.”
“But,” said Abby, “I think that is important to say because we also wanted to share that we are expecting a baby. And it will not be a shotgun wedding because we were technically married. So this is a celebration of our life together but also the fact that we have a baby due in October.”
The room erupted with cheers, and Sarah took photos. She took photos of the joy and laughter on Abby’s and Paul’s faces. She took photos of the little girl Hannah jumping up and down and then hugging her mother. She took photos of Laura and her boyfriend Ollie applauding.
When the applause finally ended, Sarah lowered her camera.
She felt unable to move for a moment. As soon as she could slip away without drawing attention, she slid outside the doors into the gusty evening and walked out of sight, where she leaned against the side of the hotel, her back pressed against the shingles, her eyes on the soft green haze of the horizon.
Her chest hurt like someone had kicked it with a boot.
There was a sound of a door opening and closing.
She didn’t dare to look up and see who it was, but a moment later, Ren was beside her, leaning next to her against the wall, blocking the gusty summer wind.
His presence felt like the thing she most desperately wanted and exactly what she didn’t need right then.
“Hey,” he said, “everything okay?”
Sarah nodded, carefully composing herself so her voice wouldn’t shake. “Yes.”
He let out a slow breath, looking out at the indigo blue of night. “Can I ask a personal question?” His eyes were serious.
Oh God. What had Paul told Ren? She hadn’t even told the whole story of her divorce to Paul, too afraid of upsetting him. “Go ahead,” she said, feeling suddenly bone tired.
“You and your husband,” he said gently, and her heart was throbbing like it was trapped in a vise, “did you have different perspectives on having kids?”
“No.” Her voice sounded empty. “We had the same perspective.”
“Okay.”
She wanted him to leave, but he wasn’t leaving.
“We had fertility issues,” she said finally.
“Ah.” Ren nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She looked away into the darkness. She had a sudden, horrible sense that she might throw up right there in front of him.
A look came into Ren’s eyes. She saw exactly the moment he put it together. “So your photo series with the babies…”
She nodded. “That was where all my work was. That was my entire income.”
“Shit,” he said quietly.
She was glad he could see the implications without her needing to spell it out. He understood, but he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t lived it.
All day, every day, shooting photos of people’s babies.
All night, every night, editing photos of babies on her computer.
Babies floating in space. Babies surrounded by fields of wheat.
Babies drifting down rivers with the flow of the current.
Babies in factories, in old cars, in deserts and swamps and abandoned steamships.
All of her money had come from that one photo series, and all her money went into her attempts to get pregnant, then into a possible adoption that fell through.
And there were miscarriages. One and then another, until Danny came home one day with a heartbreaking look in his eyes and said, “Something has happened.”
And like a fool, Sarah saw his face and assumed that someone was hurt. “Is everyone okay?” she asked him, not yet realizing that the injured party was her.
Ren could guess at it, but he didn’t know.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
She felt sick all over again. “Please stop. The one thing I have never wanted from you is pity, and that is what you always seem to give me.”
“I don’t pity you.” He stared at her.
“I am not pathetic,” she said. “I had some bad luck and then I got divorced and stopped doing photography. And that’s okay. There’s only a tiny fraction of people who can make a living at it anyway. And I’m employed. I have friends. I’m not a cautionary tale.”
“Of course not.”
She took a breath. “Is that why you wanted me to do your workshop? Because if so, you don’t need to do me any favors. I have a job, and I’m stable, and I’m fine.”