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By Root 1242 0

beneath the sun, watching him work, remembering days early in their marriage when they’d gone out for long walks in the spring evenings, holding hands, the air infused with scents of honeysuckle and hyacinths. What had she imagined, that younger version of herself, walking in the soft still light of dusk, dreaming her dreams? Not this life, certainly. Norah had learned the travel business inside out over the past five years. She’d organized the office, and gradually she’d started overseeing trips. She’d built a stable client list and learned to sell, pushing glossy brochures across her desk, describing in breathless detail places she herself had only dreamed of going. She’d become an expert at solving last-minute crises: lost luggage, misplaced passports, sudden bouts of giardiasis. Last year, when Pete Warren decided to retire, she’d taken a deep breath and bought the business. Now it was all hers, from the low brick building to the boxes of blank airline tickets in the closet. Her days were hectic, busy, satisfying—and every night she came home to a house full of silence.

“I still don’t see it,” she said, when David finally finished, when she was standing up and brushing sand from her legs and her arms, shaking sand from her hair. “Why take the photo of me at all, if you’re hoping I’ll just disappear into the landscape?”

“It’s about perspective,” David said, looking up from his equipment. His hair was wild, his cheeks and forearms flushed with noon sun. In the far distance Paul had turned and was on his way back, drawing nearer. “It’s about expectations. People will look at this picture and see a beach, rolling dunes. And then they’ll glimpse something a little odd, something familiar in your particular set of curves, or they’ll read the title and look again, searching for the woman they didn’t see the first time, and they’ll find you.”

There was intensity in his voice; the wind coming off the ocean moved through his dark hair. It made her sad, because he spoke of photography as he had spoken once of medicine, of their marriage, a language and tone that evoked the lost past and filled her with longing. Do you and David talk about big things or small things? Bree asked her once, and Norah was shocked to realize how many of their conversations were about things as perfunctory and necessary as household chores and Paul’s schedule.

The sun was bright on her hair and the gritty sand had caught in the tender skin between her legs. David was absorbed in putting away his camera. Norah had hoped this dream vacation would be a path back to the closeness they’d once shared. This was what had compelled her to spend so many hours lying in the hot sun, holding herself still while David took roll after roll of photos, but they had been here three days now, and nothing but the setting was significantly different from home. Each day they drank their morning coffee in silence. David found ways to work; he was either taking pictures or fishing. He did read in the evenings, swinging in the hammock. Norah took walks and naps, puttered, and went shopping at the bright, overpriced tourist shops in town. Paul played his guitar, and he ran.

Norah shaded her eyes and looked down the golden curve of the beach. Closer now, the runner’s shape had emerged, and she saw it was not Paul after all. The man running was tall, lean, maybe thirty-five or forty. He wore blue nylon shorts edged with white piping and no shirt. His shoulders, already tanned dark, were edged with a burn that looked painful. As he drew close to them, he slowed and then stopped, hands on his hips, breathing heavily.

“Nice camera,” he said. Then, looking straight at Norah, he added, “Interesting shot.” He was beginning to go bald; his eyes were dark brown, intense. She turned away, feeling their heat, as David began to talk: waves and dunes, sand and flesh, two conflicting images at once.

She gazed down the beach. Yes. There, barely visible, was another running figure, her son. The sun was so bright. For a few seconds she felt dizzy, little silverfish of light flashing behind