“Right,” Sam said. “And I’m Sam Verona. Well, see you around, Sylvie. Maybe on the benches, huh?”
She nodded, everything moving much too fast. One second later, the photo shop bells were ringing and he was out the door. A few seconds after that, he was stepping off the curb and crossing to his car. It was a white car, a car she was pretty sure she recognized from the Feverview Dwellings parking lot.
It should have occurred to her, really. She’d never asked his name, and when she’d given him her name at the apartment complex, he hadn’t shown any recognition. Nor had she ever seen a picture of Christian’s real father, whoever he was. This man had stumbled out of the apartment complex and put his head in his hands, and she’d assumed that the world was very small, that everything was connected. But this man, Sam, was crying about something else. About his injured grandchild, maybe, and some misguided guilt he felt for it. Or maybe he was upset about something else. His life could include a wide range of things to grieve over, just as it could encompass a vast range of things to be happy about.
Christian’s father had an apartment at Feverview Dwellings, too, and yet he’d never made himself known. It was possible he’d passed her as she and the man she thought was him were talking. But he’d grieved differently, in a way she hadn’t anticipated. His whole life was probably wildly different from what she pictured.
Something else struck her. Did you hear? Sam asked. We have new management. They’re going to landscape and everything.
We have new management. He thought she lived at Feverview Dwellings. She’d been there, after all, and who loiters around a place like that? She glanced down at herself, alarmed. Did she look as though she lived there? Hadn’t he noticed the label on her purse, the kidskin leather of her gloves, the quality of her shoes, her ring? And yet he must not have. He’d only seen her proximity. He had misjudged her just as she had misjudged him. She pressed her hand to her forehead. And then she smiled.
The wedding she and Tabitha were photographing was in Philadelphia in a big clipper-ship restaurant that sat in the Delaware River harbor. When Sylvie climbed aboard, she realized she’d once been here with James a long time ago, back when the boys were still in high school. She fought to remember the mood of the dinner, but she couldn’t recall a single thing they’d talked about, a single thing they’d eaten. It was possible James had been seeing the woman back then. It was possible he had already bought that bracelet for her. He could already have been carrying the secret around by then, doing everything he could so that she would never find out.
She loved him, despite all of it. That was real love, she supposed—overlooking even what was ugly. But it made her sad, too, to realize that the ugliness was there. The blinders were off her now, and she couldn’t put them back on no matter how badly she wanted to. Some days, she really wanted to. Some days, she didn’t feel better off. She didn’t feel cleaner, purer, wiser; instead it felt like she was constantly standing naked in a raw, whipping wind. She envied her past self, purposeful, oblivious, and naive. But she also felt a battle-worn trueness that hadn’t been there before. She felt like she could really do things now. Really change things. Even things she’d thought she’d never dare.
One side of the boat was pitched down slightly. The tables on that side were bolted down, the legs cut to uneven lengths so they’d be level. The ceremony was to take place in front of a mural of a bearded Poseidon holding a trident. The same string quartet was setting up shop on the slanty side of the room, and there was Desmond. His face lit up when he saw Sylvie, and she waved. She decided she would tell him about Sam Verona. And about what had happened, and who she thought Sam had been, and even the letter she’d written to him, the letter she’d never given him. It was crazy—she barely knew anything about Desmond except for the broad, sweeping things everyone told strangers about their lives when they first meet—but she knew she’d tell him anyway, and weather whatever response he had.
There was commotion in the lobby; the wedding party began to file in. The groom walked down the aisle to the Poseidon mural. He was older than she was—maybe James’s age, around seventy. As he got closer, she saw there was a small hearing aid in his ear. The groom noticed the camera around her neck and came over. “Thanks for helping us out at such short notice,” he exhaled, grasping her hand. “We thought we were stuck.”