Forty-Seven
Shiloh dropped the film off at a one-hour photo place the next morning on her way to work. She went to get the prints over
lunch.
Tom walked with her. She still hadn’t given him the whole story. (Shiloh felt very protective of the whole story.) Tom knew
that Cary had been emailing Shiloh, that they had a complicated history, and that Cary was in the Navy.
“Oh no, Shiloh, I think he might be gay.”
“He’s not gay.”
“Everyone I’ve ever met in the Navy is gay.”
Tom wanted her to look at the photos right away, but Shiloh waited until they were back at their desk and she had the privacy
of a computer monitor between them.
The first photo was of the ocean. She smiled.
The next one was of a very small room with the skinniest bed Shiloh had ever seen—it had a roll bar, like a toddler bed. There
was a small desk and some cabinets. There was no sign of Cary—or anyone—in the picture, nothing personal. But this had to
be his room.
There were several photos of cramped hallways and rounded hatches. The walls and floors looked like metal, and there were
exposed pipes and wires. Everything seemed a little too small. Was everyone on Cary’s ship constantly squeezing past each
other and ducking their heads?
There were three photos of a cafeteria-style tray—breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cary’s hand was in the corner of one photo.
Shiloh recognized his chapped fingers. The food looked like school food. At least there was plenty of it.
There weren’t people in very many of the photos, and when there were, it was just their legs and feet or the back of their
heads.
When Shiloh got to a photo of Cary himself, it took her by surprise. Someone else must have taken it. Cary was standing outside—probably on the deck of the ship. He was wearing blue coveralls and a baseball cap, and he was squinting into the sun. He wasn’t smiling exactly, but it didn’t take much to activate all the smiling lines in Cary’s cheeks
and around his eyes. There were three photos of him, taken all in a row.
“There he is,” Tom said softly. He was standing behind Shiloh.
“There he is,” she agreed.
“He’s got a good face.”
“He does.”
“He looks like the mean teacher who ends up being on your side at the end.”
“That’s my thing,” Shiloh said.
“That’s your actual thing, on the inside,” Tom said, “but from the outside, you’re just a nice lady with interesting shoes.”
“Jesus Christ,” Shiloh said, “is that what it’s come to? Is that who I am?”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t let it get you down, Shiloh. Most people around here don’t even have interesting shoes.”
He went back to his seat on the other side of the desk.
Shiloh looked at the photos of Cary some more.
“You still just exchanging friendly emails?” Tom asked.
“Very friendly,” she said.
“Well...” He looked thoughtful. “He did send you his G.I. Joe glamour shot. That’s got to mean something.”
Shiloh asked Cary a thousand questions about the photos. He sent her two or three answers.
“Are these photos military secrets?” she asked.
Cary said they weren’t.
“Can you picture life on a boat now?” he asked.
“I can picture it better,” Shiloh replied.