Snap

by Carol Snow

  The rain started quickly, angrily, the fat drops like punches on our skin. We stuffed our things into our beach bags and hurried up the street.

  At Psychic Photo, Leonardo sat behind the counter, eyes closed, chin tilted up, listening to a portable CD player. When he heard the door, he yanked off his headphones, popped off the stool, and made for the front door. "Mom's in the back, doing a reading for a new client. Thanks for taking over for me, Dee. I've got some stuff I need to do. Hi, Madison; see you later."

  He disappeared into the rain before Delilah could say, "But I need to change my clothes!"

  "You want me to hang down here while you shower?" I asked. "Nah. My mom should be out soon. "

  I expected Rose to emerge from the back room with a twittering, flowered-dress type like Mrs. Voorhees, someone who'd gush about energy and karma and transformation. Instead the woman who shuffled out a few minutes later had a tearstained face and sagging shoulders. She wore jean shorts and a blue T-shirt. Her blond hair hung limp around her face.

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  "I just wish I'd known earlier," she told Rose. "I would have shown him more patience. More understanding."

  "It's not too late," Rose said. "Go to him. Let him feel your energy, your love. You can make your connection in this life even stronger than it was in the last."

  Delilah's face turned so red it was practically purple. When the blond woman left the store, she exploded, "You don't do past-life regressions, remember?"

  Rose spoke quietly. "This was a special case."

  "Who was she in a former life--Queen Elizabeth? Betsy Ross? Have you ever noticed that only famous people get reincarnated? Why don't slaves and peasants ever get a second chance?"

  "This wasn't about fame," Rose said. "It was about Jennifer's relationship with her husband. He's always acted so helpless around her. She thought it might have been her fault, something she was doing, but I helped her see that their dynamics were the result of a previous relationship."

  "They were married in another life?" Delilah ventured.

  Rose shook her head. "Her husband...was her son."

  "Ew!" Delilah and I said at the same time--and then we burst into laughter.

  "It's not funny!" Rose snapped, silencing us with her ferocity. "They've brought another soul into their marriage : she's going to have a baby. And that realization changed her husband in a fundamental way. She didn't come here to talk about past lives but to learn about her future. Her husband is in a coma. She wanted me to tell her if he would live or die."

  "No," Delilah whispered.

  Rose nodded. "Jennifer is Ronald Young's wife. The doctors

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  had hoped he'd regain consciousness by now. It doesn't look good."

  Of course: Delilah and I had seen the woman before, when she came to help her husband at the photo printer.

  "So what did you tell her?" Delilah asked.

  Rose raised her shoulders. "That I didn't know what would happen. I tried to look ahead, but I couldn't see anything. So I told her what I sensed about their past relationship. And I told her to love him. That was the best I could do."

  Delilah stood in the front doorway with me. The rain hadn't let up, but I was already drenched; a little more water wouldn't make any difference.

  "You going to be around later?" I asked.

  "Yeah."

  "If it stops raining, I'll come back with my camera. You've really got to look at those photos again."

  I expected Delilah to say something about Ronald Young's wife. Instead, she crossed her arms and looked at her feet. "Don't hurt Duncan. He's been through a lot already."

  I tried to answer, but the words wouldn't come out.

  "Don't drip all over the carpet," my mother said when I burst into the room, soaked and bedraggled from ocean, wind, and rain.

  "Where's dad?"

  "In the shower."

  "Do you know where he put my camera?" Oh, God, what if he'd gotten it wet?

  "You can ask him when he comes out." She took a clean pot

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  from the drying rack and put it in the cabinet with a clang. "Lexie called," she added casually.

  I felt like I'd been hit. "How did she know where we were staying?"

  "She called my cell phone." With some more clattering she put away the rest of the dishes. "You want to use it to call her back?"

  I didn't answer.

  "Madison?" She turned to see if I'd heard her. "Maybe later," I said.

  Suddenly, the room shook with an enormous boom. I yelped.

  "Just thunder," my mother said. "Better get used to it if we're going to live here."

  I sat on the couch and waited for my mother to tell me not to sit on the couch in a wet bathing suit. Astonishingly, she didn't.

  "What did Lexie say?" I mumbled.

  "She said, 'Is Madison there?'"

  "Thanks," I said. "That's helpful."

  The thunder boomed again, louder this time, as my father, wearing a plain white T-shirt and gray sweatpants, emerged from the bathroom rubbing his hair with a towel.

  "Did you hear the news?" he asked.

  "Yeah," I said, thinking he meant Lexie's call.

  "Things are looking good," he said, standing straighter than he had in some time.

  "Huh?"

  "And there's plenty of room for growth." He chucked the towel back through the open bathroom door.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," I said.

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  "Your father got a promotion," my mother said. "Site foreman."

  "Great," I said. "Did Lexie say anything else?"

  "It's a new project," my father said. "A remodel. We'll probably get started in the next week or two. And after that who knows?"

  "There's paid vacation time," my mother said. "And in six months, health insurance, even dental." She held my gaze. "This means we're definitely staying in Sandyland. I'll stop by the high school tomorrow, get you enrolled. And we'll start looking harder for someplace to live."

  I nodded, accepting the inevitable. It didn't really matter what Lexie had said.

  "Dad, where's my camera?"

  "In my backpack," he said. "In the bathroom."

  The camera was buried under a stained, smelly sweatshirt that I tried, unsuccessfully, not to touch. I turned off the overhead light, sat on the edge of the tub, and pressed the power button. There were no windows in the bathroom; with the lights off, it was as black as a moonless night.

  First I came across my dad's shots: a ditch, a hill, a cinder-block wall--thrilling stuff. I zipped back until I got to the pictures from Delilah's apartment, afraid of what I might see. If Ronald Young's blue halo had disappeared, everyone would think I had been lying.

  But there he was, still rimmed by the ghostly light. I savored relief for only an instant before anxiety took up its now familiar residence in my gut. I examined the other pictures from that day but found nothing out of place.

  My mother rapped on the door, "flurry up. I need to use the

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  restroom." (So formal: just once I'd like to hear my mother say, "I gotta pee.")

  "One sec," I said.

  In my hands, the shots on the screen followed one another like flashes of lightning. When I got to the pictures I'd taken the night before, a tingle passed through me. The shots around the tunnel were murky, the shadows ominous. Were these pictures really that scary, or was I just projecting my remembered anxiety onto them? I could still hear the scampering of the rats, smell the urine, feel the wind.

  When I reached the final shot, my anxiety turned to terror. The moon, freed from the clouds, glowed in the night sky: a shining, happy face edged in blue.

  In the sphere I saw two eyes, a nose, a mouth. But the face grinning back at me wasn't the man in the moon.

  It was Duncan.

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  21.

  Beyond Psychic Photo's front door , the printer's lights glowed like fireflies. Behind me the rain fell in needle
s.

  Rose was at the counter. I must have looked like a crazy per-son, still in my board shorts and bikini top, my hair a mess of salt and rain, my face streaked with tears and snot. But Rose was good with crazy people. She led me to the back room without a word and rummaged through some of Delilah's eBay boxes until she found a blanket. She eased me onto a couch and sat next to me, quiet, waiting.

  "Duncan," I said at last.

  "He's not here," she said. "They went fishing, but they're probably back by now. The storm--"

  "He's in danger!" I sobbed. I couldn't say "dead." Or "dying." Not yet.

  She shook her head. "We get these storms all the time. I know it seems scary, but it's not that big a deal."

  Her voice was so calm and soothing. As she picked up the phone

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  to call Duncan and Larry's apartment, I almost believed that someone would answer, that everything was going to be okay.

  Several seconds passed. I forgot to breathe. Rose shook her head and put down the phone. "I'm sure they're fine."

  Tears blurring my vision, I turned on my camera and found the moon shot.

  Rose froze, her eyes wide with horror. "No," she whispered.

  She grabbed the phone and punched in some numbers; she shut her eyes, her breathing ragged. "Is this the harbormaster? I'm trying to find out about a charter boat, the Peggy." She nodded and said, "Right, Ray Clarke's boat. He took it out early this morning, along with Larry Vaughn and his son, Duncan."

  Her features clenched in frustration. "I'm not his wife, I'm his--I'm a friend. I don't know where they were planning to go. But I thought they'd be back by now, and--" Her gaze fell on the camera burning hot in my hand.

  "Can you radio them?" she pleaded. "Just make sure they're okay?"

  When she hung up, she crumpled to the couch next to me and dissolved into tears.

  There were footfalls down the back stairs, and the door opened: Delilah. Her face was paler than usual. She looked upset but not surprised--not even a little bit.

  "Duncan?" she asked in a small voice.

  After I'd shown Delilah the photo; after the harbor patrol had called back to say they'd been unable to make contact with the Peggy; after Rose had phoned Larry's friends and neighbors

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  and fellow fishermen and then his home number again--just in case--we piled into Rose's car and headed for Kimberley Cove. Outside, the car was small and gray, scratched and dented. Inside, duct tape held the black vinyl upholstery together. A cardboard Christmas tree, its piney scent long gone, hung from the rearview mirror.

  The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Rose set the windshield wipers on the lowest setting. Every time I thought they were off for good, they'd screech an arc across the chipped glass, leaving a half-moon trail of misty dirt.

  We didn't talk. When we reached Kimberley Cove, Rose brought the car to a jerky halt, hopped out, and dashed across the small rutted parking lot to the weathered gray shed that was the harbormaster's office.

  Delilah and I headed for the pier, longing to see the Peggy bouncing over the waves on her way to safety. I checked my camera. Duncan was still there, laughing with the man in the moon.

  It was low tide. At the end of the pier, a steep gangplank led to a dock. I clutched the wet, splintery railing and took baby steps, trying not to stumble over my flip-flops.

  At the bottom, the dock swayed under my feet. The sky looked like a double exposure: a stormy day overlaid on a sunny one. Rays of sun snuck through the clouds like spotlights among curtains of rain. Had this been a week earlier--or even a day earlier--I would have pulled out my camera and shot the view.

  Anchored boats cluttered the harbor, but the Peggy's big round mooring bounced around like a child's abandoned ball. The other vessels lurched on the waves, the sky-high captain's chairs plunging

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  here and there like amusement park rides. Of course, in an amusement park, you'd be strapped in. A picture flashed in my brain: Duncan perched high on the lookout tower, scanning the water for fish, ignoring the waves until a big one launched him off his perch and into the shark-filled sea.

  I must have made a sound because Delilah said, "What?"

  "Maybe the boat's okay but he fell in the water. From the top."

  She held my gaze for a moment, her gray eyes drenched with pain and loss, before turning her stare to the horizon. "Sometimes, before something bad happens--I get a feeling. Not anything specific, just this...sense."

  "And?" I whispered.

  She shook her head. "Nothing."

  "But you knew," I said. "When you saw me at the shop, you knew I was there about Duncan."

  "I could feel your fear," she said. "That's all."

  A few minutes later, wet and shivering, Delilah and I approached the harbormaster's office. Rose stood in the open doorway, letting in the rain.

  "Can't you send someone out to look?" she pleaded to the gray-haired man who sat behind a big steel desk.

  The harbormaster rubbed his faded blue eyes. "Lady, I'm not that worried. A couple of boats just came in, and they said it wasn't that bad."

  "What about the Coast Guard?" Rose pressed. "Can we ask them to look?"

  "A family member could call," he said with a shrug.

  "We're like family," Rose said.

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  The harbormaster raised an eyebrow at the "like"--but he called anyway.

  "They'll find 'em," he said once he'd hung up. "They'll give me all kinds of grief for sending them out for no reason, but they'll find 'em."

  But they didn't. A few agonizing hours later, the sun broke through for real, just in time to splatter the clouds with orange paint. There had been no sign of the Peggy. The harbormaster locked the office, muttering that he'd already stayed way past closing time.

  "They're probably fine," he told Rose. We all wanted to believe him.

  On the wet dock, in our clammy clothes, we watched the sun slip below some more clouds and then pop out again before bumping up against the horizon. We squinted against the orange glare, searching, searching for the boat.

  Rose was quiet. Every once in a while she'd close her eyes and whisper, "I'd know if he was hurt."

  And maybe Duncan was still alive. Ron Young hadn't died-- at least not yet. Maybe we could save Duncan, if only we knew where he was.

  When just the faintest rim of pink remained in the dark sky, Delilah spoke. "We should go home."

  "But we can't," Rose and I said at the same time.

  "If they hear anything, they'll call us. Leo's probably wondering where we are."

  As the final color drained from the night sky, I checked the camera one last time, my hands shaking so badly that I released the

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  shutter, snapping a picture of the dark, endless water. I skimmed past my father's construction photos until I reached the picture of Duncan smiling through the moon. "Don't go," I whispered to him.

  I asked Rose to drop me at the beach on the way back. I wasn't ready to go back to the motel room.

  Moving across the sand, I felt weirdly disconnected. It was like I was walking on someone else's legs, seeing through someone else's eyes. The ocean was black, sprinkled with moonbeams. A single flip-flop, patterned with flowers, lay half buried in the sand. A line of shells shone like a giant's crooked smile.

  How could I feel so miserable when the world was so beautiful? Had it always been this way?

  The soaked sand was mushy cold on my feet. The salty air felt damp and alive. The stars shone like pinpricks: so many suns, light years away. We were so small, really, and our time on earth so short.

  I sat on the wet sand and closed my eyes. So what if we didn't have a big house anymore. Now I got to live in a place with sweet air and watercolor sunsets, where ghostly morning fogs gave way to golden afternoons. I still had my parents. I had friends. I'd go to school and work hard, and in a few years I'd go to college--there were scholarships. Everything was going to be all right.

&n
bsp; Tears soaked my face before I even realized I was crying. Duncan understood. He knew that nothing mattered more than the people you loved. He'd learned to live every day as if it might be his last, it seemed.

  Finally, I got up and brushed the mucky sand off my legs.

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  Above the sea, the moon, slightly fuzzy, rose above the horizon, dodging between clouds. I'd never again look at the moon without thinking of Duncan, without wondering if he was up there in the sky, looking back at me.

  From now on, I'd have to live for both of us.

  When I got back to the motel, my parents were lounging on the bed watching a sitcom. They smiled at me absently before returning their attention to the small screen.

  I headed for the bathroom. In the shower, no one would hear me cry.

  "Lexie phoned again," my mother called out. I paused in the doorway. "I'll call her tomorrow." I would, too.

  When I got out of the shower, my parents were still watching television. Head down, I grabbed my mother's cell phone and my camera and hurried out to the patio, where I collapsed on a white plastic chair and listened to the noises of the night. Funny: I'd never noticed before how much passing traffic sounded like the ocean.

  First, I called Psychic Photo, feeling bad when I heard Rose's anxious, "Hello?" I hadn't meant to get her hopes up. Duncan and Larry were still gone.

  Next, I turned on my camera, almost afraid of what I might see. Would Larry be in a picture, smiling with his son? Would Ray Clarke, the boat's captain, show up? Rose's clients paid to have their fortunes told. But what good was knowing what was going to happen if there was nothing you could do to change the outcome?

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  The Canon felt even hotter than usual, like the metal could burn my palms. I zipped to the moon photo, a final spark of hope still simmering in my chest. And then the spark went out. Duncan was still there, trapped in the small screen, cursed by the moon.

  I checked the construction shots again, just in case. Duncan being Duncan, he could have snuck into a different frame. He could be playing with shovels, digging in the dirt. But he wasn't there.

  There was a picture I hadn't seen: the snap I'd taken on the pier, when my shaking hands had accidentally released the shutter. It was the kind of poorly lit, blurry mistake I'd normally delete without a second glance. When I'd pushed the button, there was nothing in front of the lens but dark, choppy sea.