The bow of the boat is the quietest part—the kids’ rooms and the bathroom are all behind me down the hallway, which means when I close my door I’m in my own little world. Water on three sides. Sky through the windows. The gentle rock of the hull that used to make me seasick and now feels like the ocean is breathing with me.
I keep my editing station on the built-in dresser under the starboard window—an external monitor propped against the wall, my hard drives stacked in a milk crate that Aidan decorated with stickers, and amug that says WORLD’S MOST ADEQUATE PHOTOGRAPHER that Michelle gave me as a joke and I use every day because it keeps me honest.
This room is small. Everything on a houseboat is small. But it’s mine. The first space that’s belonged to just me since I married Matt, and possibly the first space that’s belonged to just me ever, because before Matt there were roommates and before roommates there was my parents’ house and before that there was nothing.
Small is fine. Small is enough—especially with a view of the ocean, the sound of the water, and a lock on the door.
I reach for my phone. Six-fifteen. The houseboat is quiet, which means all three kids are still asleep, which means I have approximately twelve minutes of peace before Aidan discovers something that needs rescuing or Millie starts her morning reading routine or Jenna’s alarm goes off and she begins her daily war with the hot water tank.
Twelve minutes. I could edit photos. I could answer emails. I could review the shot list for the Mads maternity session at ten.
Instead, I lie here and look at the ceiling and think about Paul Spencer standing on the dock last night, hands in his pockets, watching the yacht catchthe sunset. He didn’t know I could see him through the galley window. He stood there for a long time.
I think about that more than I should.
From down the hallway, a crash. Then Aidan’s voice: “I’m fine.”
Nothing good has ever followed “I’m fine” in this house. “I’m fine” preceded the discovery that Steve had gotten into the bathroom cabinet and was sitting in my moisturizer. “I’m fine” preceded the revelation that Aidan had tried to make toast by holding bread against a light bulb.
“What happened?” I call.
“Nothing.”
“What kind of nothing?”
“The kind where a shelf fell but everything is okay and Steve is fine and my lamp is mostly fine.”
“Mostly?”
“It still works. It’s just in two pieces now. Three pieces. The shade is separate.”
Millie’s voice, calm as a weather report: “The shelf fell because he was standing on it to look at the yacht through the porthole.”
“I wanted to see if anyone was on it.”
“At six in the morning?”
“Rich people wake up early. That’s how they get rich.”
I press my face into the pillow. This is my life. Broken lamps and crab escapes and a child who believes billionaires are early risers.
My phone buzzes. Mads.
Mads:I can’t see my feet and I’m pretty sure this baby is training for the Olympics. See you at ten. Asher is already panicking.
Me:Tell Asher this is a photo shoot, not a medical emergency.
Mads:I told him that. He packed a hospital bag anyway.
I laugh into my pillow. Then I get up, step over the camera bag, dodge the milk crate, and go make coffee before anyone else breaks anything.
The beach isperfect for maternity photos. The dunes give me texture. The sea oats catch the light. The water is calm this morning, that pale turquoise that photographs like a dream, and the sky is doing the thing it does in July where it’s so blue it looks fake.
Mads arrives in a white sundress that flows over her belly like she was poured into it. She’s barefoot, hair down, glowing the way pregnantwomen glow in the third trimester—which is to say she looks stunning and also like she hasn’t slept in three days and her back hurts and she might cry or laugh at any moment and she can’t predict which.
“I look like a whale in a sundress,” she says.
“You look like a goddess of the sea and I’m going to make you cry with how beautiful these photos are. Now stop talking and let me work.”
