“And I need access to the upper deck during the ceremony for overhead angles.”
“Overhead angles.”
“Looking down at the aisle. It’s a thing. Trust me.”
“I trust you.” It comes out before I can stop it. Not about photography. Not about camera angles. Just—I trust you. Sitting in my dock office, going through logistics, I said it like it was the most natural sentence in the world.
She looks up from the binder and holds my eyes for one second longer than logistics requires.
“Good,” she says. Then back to the binder. “I also need to talk about Matt.”
I didn’t expect that. I set my pen down.
“He called last night,” she says. “Confirmed his flight. He’s coming Saturday.”
“That’s good.”
“It is. It’s good.” She closes the binder, opens it again, and closes it. “The kids are excited. Aidan has been making a list of things he wants to do with his dad. It’s fourteen items long. Number seven is ‘teach Dad to identify crabs by species.’ Number twelve is ‘introduce Dad to Mr. Paul.’”
“I saw item twelve on the list.”
“He showed you the list?”
“He shows me everything.”
She smiles, but it’s the careful one. The one that’s held together with effort.
“I’m scared,” she says. “Not of Matt. Matt’s just Matt. He’s not mean, he’s not dangerous, he’s just... absent. And every time I let the kids get their hopes up, I’m the one who has to put them back together when he doesn’t follow through.”
“He confirmed the flight.”
“He confirmed everything last time too. And then he called from his garage—his climate-controlled, custom-shelved garage—and said hecouldn’t make it. There’s always a reason. The trains always win.”
She goes quiet. Her eyes drop to the binder, to the shot list, to the diagrams of a wedding she’s been hired to capture, and her hands are gripping the edges like it’s the only solid thing in the room.
“Emma.”
Her chin lifts.
“If he doesn’t come, I’m here.”
I’m not sure what I mean by that. Whether I mean I’ll watch the kids or help with logistics or just be present in the way Matt has never been. I just know that the sentence is true and it came out of my mouth and I’m not taking it back.
“Paul...”
“It’s not a big thing. I’m just saying. Whatever happens. I’ll be right here on this dock.”
She blinks. Her eyes are doing the thing they do when she’s trying not to cry, which I know because I’ve seen it exactly three times and each time it’s made me want to fix something. Tear something down and put it back together stronger.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
She picks up the binder, stands up, walks to the door, and turnsaround.
“You’d be terrible at crab identification.”
“I’ve been working this dock since 1987. I know every species within a mile.”
