Brown-Eyed Girl (Travis Family #4)(65)

“I like them.”

Sofia gave him a confused glance.

They were both so focused on each other that neither of them noticed my discreet exit from the kitchen.

“I’m going to the farmer’s market,” Steven said. “There should be some good peaches. Would you like to come along?”

Sofia replied in a slightly higher-pitched voice than usual. “Okay, why not?”

“Good.”

“I just have to change out of my pajamas into some regular clothes and…” Sofia paused. “Pajamas,” she repeated. “That’s how to say it. Right?”

Unable to resist, I stopped to glance at them from my vantage on the stairs. I had an unobstructed view of Steven’s face. He was smiling down at Sofia, his eyes glowing. “The way you pronounce it,” he said, “it always sounds like pa-yamas.” He hesitated and lifted his hand to caress her cheek gently.

“Pajamas,” Sofia repeated, sounding exactly like before.

Seeming to lose all restraint, Steven pulled her into his arms and murmured something low.

A long silence. A little sobbing breath. “So have I,” I heard Sofia say.

He kissed her, and Sofia molded herself against him, her hands climbing into his hair. The two of them seemed overwhelmed with mutual tenderness, clumsy with it as they kissed each other’s cheeks, chins, mouths.

Not long ago, I thought as I hurried up the stairs, the sight of Steven and Sofia passionately embracing would have been unthinkable.

Everything was changing so fast. The long, steady road I had plotted out for Sofia and me was turning out to have so many unexpected twists and detours that I found myself wondering if we were going to end up in entirely different places from those we’d originally planned.

I received frequent updates on Haven’s condition from Ella and Liberty and, of course, Joe. Although Haven’s health was improving rapidly, she wouldn’t be well enough to receive visitors outside of immediate family until she was back home. Her daughter, named Rosalie, was thriving and gaining weight and was frequently brought to Haven for what was called “kangaroo time,” resting on her chest for skin-to-skin contact.

As I scrolled through photos that Joe had taken and loaded onto his tablet, I paused at a striking image of Hardy cradling Rosalie tenderly in his big hands, his smiling face lowered so that one of her miniature palms rested on his nose.

“Her eyes look blue,” I said, zooming in on the picture.

“When Hardy’s mom visited yesterday, she said his eyes were exactly that color when he was born.”

“When will Haven and Rosalie be able to leave the hospital?”

“One more week, they think. Hardy will be over the moon, bringing his two girls home.” Joe paused. “But I hope my sister’s not going to want to have any more children. Hardy says he couldn’t survive this again, even if Haven wants to take the chance.”

“Is there a risk of preeclampsia if she gets pregnant again?”

Joe nodded.

“Haven may be fine with just having one child,” I said. “Or Hardy may change his mind. You never can predict what people will do.” Having reached the last picture, I handed the tablet back to Joe.

We were at his house in the Old Sixth Ward, a charming bungalow with a slightly smaller companion house in the back. Joe had painted the interiors of both buildings a soft, creamy white and stained the trim a rich walnut. The decor was spare and masculine, with a few pieces of beautifully restored furniture. Joe had spent more time showing me the smaller house, where he worked and kept his photography equipment. To my surprise, there was even a darkroom, which he admitted he seldom used, but would never get rid of.

“Every now and then, I’ll shoot a roll of film because there’s still something magical about developing a print in the darkroom.”

“Magical?” I repeated with a quizzical smile.

“I’ll show you sometime. There’s nothing like seeing an image appear in the developer tray. And it’s all about craft: You can’t tell if the exposure is too light or dark, you can’t see the details of burning and dodging, so you have to go with what feels right, what past experience has taught you.”

“So you prefer that to Photoshop?”

“No, Photoshop has too many advantages. But I still like the idea of having to wait to see a picture in the darkroom. Taking time, and seeing the image with a fresh perspective… it’s not as practical as digital, but it’s more romantic.”

I loved his passion for his work. I loved it that he thought of a tiny windowless room filled with trays of caustic chemicals as romantic.

Scrolling through files of photos on a computer monitor, I found a series of shots he’d taken in Afghanistan… beautiful, stark, riveting. Some of the landscapes were otherworldly. A pair of old men sitting in front of a turquoise wall… a soldier’s silhouette against a red sky as he stood on a mountain path… a dog, seen from an eye-level perspective with a soldier’s booted feet in the foreground.

“How long were you there?” I asked.

“Only a month.”

“How did you end up going?”

“A friend from college was filming a documentary. He and his camera crew were embedded with troops at a firebase in Kandahar. But the stills photographer had to leave early. So they asked if I would step in and finish. I was sent to the same two-day training session the rest of the crew had gone through, basically how not to screw things up in a combat environment. The dogs at the front lines were incredible. Not one of them flinched at the sound of a gunshot. One day on patrol, I watched a Lab sniff out an IED that the metal detectors didn’t catch.”