Chapter 17 #2
Sean stayed another hour. He told stories, asked questions about the lighthouse, and complimented the property with real appreciation.
He invited Clint to the wedding for the fourth time, apparently.
When he finally left, the gravel had barely settled before Clint walked away from the cottage without a word.
Melissa gave him ten minutes. She cleaned up the beer bottles, rinsed them in Clint’s kitchen sink, and set them by the recycling bin inside his door. Then she went looking.
She found him at the base of the lighthouse, sitting on the ground with his back against the concrete foundation. His knees were drawn up and his hands rested on them, palms down, fingers trembling. The lighthouse rose above him in the fading light, white against the gray sky.
She sat down next to him. Close enough that her shoulder almost touched his. She didn’t say anything.
For a long time, neither did he.
“He asked me to be his best man.” Clint’s voice was rough. “Weeks ago. I haven’t answered.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d have to stand up in front of everyone who knows what happened and act like I deserve to be there.”
“You saved his life.”
“I wrecked his life.” His hands pressed flat against his knees, trying to stop the shaking.
“I made the call. Command said no, conditions were too dangerous, wait it out. I heard those kids crying on the radio and I said we’re going.
Sean didn’t hesitate. He trusted me. And I put him in the water with debris coming from every direction, and a piece of a hull panel caught his leg, and he went under, and I thought—”
He stopped. Swallowed. Pressed harder against his knees.
“He was under for eleven seconds. I counted. And when we pulled him up his leg was wrong and there was blood everywhere, but he was conscious. He was looking right at me. And do you know what he said?”
Melissa waited.
“He said, ‘Did we get the family?’ That’s what he asked.
His leg was shattered, hip broken, and he wanted to know if the family was safe.
” Clint’s voice cracked on the last word.
“They cleared me. The report said I made the right call. Sean’s never blamed me, not once.
He sends me Christmas cards. He invited me to his wedding.
He calls me brother.” He stared at the ground between his feet.
“And every time I see him walk with that cane, I know I did that. I made the call that did that to him.”
The trembling in his hands had moved into his forearms. Melissa could feel it through the small distance between them.
“I came here because Winnie needed help. That’s what I told everyone. But the truth is I came here because the decisions are small. Fix the roof. Replace the boards. Nothing I do here can ruin somebody’s life. I thought if I kept the scope small enough, I couldn’t destroy anyone else.”
He went quiet. The Gulf moved against the shore, steady and constant. Somewhere across the courtyard, a screen door closed.
Melissa pulled her knees up to match his, arms wrapped around her shins. She looked out at the water going dark and chose her words with the same care she chose a frame.
“Her name was Maria LaBelle,” Melissa said.
“She was thirty-two. Her son was four. Hurricane Selene, two years ago, the outer bands hitting the coast while everyone was still pretending the track would shift. I was embedded with a first-responder unit. We came around a corner and she was crouched behind a concrete planter with her son underneath her, both of them soaked, and the wind was tearing the roof off the building behind them.”
Clint turned his head slightly. Listening.
“I had the camera up before I even registered what I was seeing. That’s how fast it was.
Three frames. Mother shielding child, debris flying, terror on her face.
The light was extraordinary. The composition was perfect.
I took the shots and then the responders moved them to shelter and I moved on to the next thing.
I never spoke to her. Never asked her name, never asked if she wanted to be seen like that. ”
She paused. A pelican crossed the darkening water in a low, straight line.
“The photo won three awards. It ran in magazines I’d been trying to crack for ten years.
My agent called it career-defining. And then Maria found out.
A reporter tracked her down for a follow-up piece, and she told him I’d stolen the worst moment of her life and turned it into a trophy.
She was right. People recognized her on the street.
She got harassed online. She had to move her son to a different school.
She even had a stalker and had to relocate. ”
Melissa’s voice stayed level because she’d practiced this. She’d told this story to herself in the dark so many times that the words came out flat and rehearsed. But sitting here next to Clint, saying it aloud to another person for the first time, the rehearsal fell apart.
“I told myself I was documenting truth. That’s what photojournalists say.
We document. We bear witness. But I wasn’t bearing witness to anything.
I was taking. I took something from her that she never offered, and the career I built on it was built on her suffering, and I can’t give any of it back. ”
Clint was still. The trembling in his hands had stopped.
“So I came here,” she said. “Same as you. I came here and I pointed my camera at a building that couldn’t be hurt by it. And I told myself I was transitioning to architectural photography, and I believed it for a while, and then I didn’t.”
The last light drained from the sky in a slow, even fade. The lighthouse beam hadn’t switched on yet. For a few minutes, the world was just the sound of the water and the two of them sitting against the cool concrete in the growing dark.
Clint turned and looked at her. She let him. Her face in the near-dark, unframed, unprotected, offering nothing except the fact that she was still sitting there.
He reached over and took her hand. His palm was rough with calluses, and his grip was careful, the way he handled everything. She laced her fingers through his and held on.
Across the courtyard, the lighthouse beam clicked on and began its slow rotation.
It swept over them once, a brief flare of white, and moved on.
Melissa closed her eyes. Clint’s hand was warm and steady in hers.
The concrete was cold against her back, and the sound of the waves carried across the beach in the dark.