Chapter 60: Tide is Rising

The cycles continued.

On the day that our vision was restored, the most destructive girl I knew was creating the most delicious sounds in my ear, sensual kisses and playful bites.

“Good morning, my love...”

I opened my eyes all at once, because a faint orange glow was evident through my eyelids. It took me a while to recognize what was happening. Perhaps my retinas had gone into hibernation ... Or maybe I was still tired from the extended harvesting outing the previous evening. It seemed earlier than we should be rising. Rather slowly, the light sorted itself out and my brain reorganized the reappearance of this strange sensation. I saw the inside of the tent, and idly realized that it was bigger than I thought.

Good morning, my love? Oh god, she just spoke... !

I turned to Heather and shivered, staring at her with instant and overwhelming admiration. What a sight she was! She looked both ethereal and energetic as she materialized within my still-adjusting eyes.

“Good morning, love,” I murmured in a trance, finding the act of speaking to be both impossibly odd and rather unnecessary.

She smiled her perfect smile and caressed my cheek. “Welcome back.”

I wondered if I should feel some sort of momentous victory at discovering that my senses were returned to me. But the idea sank away very quickly. I realized I was just as happy to see her as I had been to be blind with her... It doesn’t make a difference...

Out of habit, I listened to the sea’s song for just a few seconds, before realizing that this wasn’t an early wakeup call after all. The waters were most of the way to being parted. “Sounds like it’s time to get to work.”

Heather’s smile broadened at my foolishly practical comment. “Not quite. We have to get Lara up first!”

“What else is new...”

She turned and gave my sister the same treatment I’d just received. I shivered as she gently kissed her earlobe. Lara stirred as she heard the sweet words in her ear. Then her eyes fluttered open to widen in surprise. I felt a flush of warmth and sent a silent thank you to Heather, for waking me up first and letting me see Lara’s reaction to the sensual revival.

“Good morning?” she said, her voice rising. “Whoa, we’re allowed to talk?”

Heather giggled. “Of course. You were always allowed to! I didn’t ever gag you, did I?”

Lara shook her head as she tried to sweep away the currents of sleep. “Didn’t gag us? I swear, you are the silliest, Heather... ! Wow, it feels really weird to say stuff.”

“I know the feeling,” Heather agreed. “When you first got here, I felt like I could barely get any words out correctly!”

We all stretched luxuriously, and a moment later we sank back into the bed and rolled around, hugging each other. As Lara took a turn to lie on top of me, she smiled at me both coyly and mischievously. It had been some dozen cycles of the low tide since that magical night when the rogue wave had crested. The period had been full of wondrous exploration mixed with the honest work of harvesting a different species of seaweed within the calm cove.

Now I looked into my sister’s eyes for the first time since so many waves had crested within each of us.

Heather pressed close to my side, watching us with interest. “Anything anyone wants to say?”

All of our smiles grew over the next little while, as we suddenly gave vision to many things that had happened in this tent in complete darkness, and contentment about certain things that had not occurred.

“Not really,” Lara said, caressing first my face and then Heather’s.

“What about you, Matt?”

I grinned, and then put my hand around Lara’s neck and pulled her down to me. As our lips met rather chastely and Lara’s eyes closed, I felt the rampant natural energy of the past weeks continue to overflow within me. We’d been unable to talk about it, Lara and I, given a certain girl’s absurd ‘rules’ – no matter what she said about not gagging us. And yet ... we’d figured out what we wanted of each other. It wasn’t to be lovers as coupled complements ... Instead, it was to be equal twins, in a way, such that we could feel everything we were both feeling. Twins, so that the energy was perfectly shared across us. I kissed Lara to open the connection of that bond ... A leveling of what we felt not for each other, but as each other. We touched each other not to deliver pleasure, but to understand the pleasure as if we were one and the same, making mutual the charged spark. And in all of this, Heather was the reflection, the mirror to us. We were both lovers to her ... And she to us, and so we loved each other perfectly.

We heard a small laugh, so we broke our kiss and turned to look at Heather, Lara resting her cheek on mine. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just wondering if the seaweed would get mad if we were an hour late to visit today,” Heather mused.

“An hour?” Lara echoed, smiling. “Is that really all you’ll give us?”

Heather playfully pushed Lara off of me, and then crawled over me to lay on top of her. Their noses were touching, and I could already see Lara releasing the holds on her desire as Heather gazed into her, pinning her arms down against the sheets. I watched raptly as Heather drew one bare leg along Lara’s.

“Is an hour not enough?” Heather whispered into Lara’s lips.

“A hundred days is not even enough with the two of you here beside me,” Lara moaned, her eyes fluttering into blindness again.

Heather looked at me rather happily as Lara writhed beneath her.

I grinned, ‘Lucky we had a big harvest last night... ‘

Her eyes narrowed mischievously. ‘I know, right? Amazing luck!’

I could only shake my head as Heather pressed her lips to Lara’s, much less chastely than I had ... The seaweed would have to wait, for a change—well, the seaweed never waited, of course. But still...

As usual, these were the idle thoughts of a fool. A calm voice reminded me of the eternal question... How long does an hour last, when you pause the world?

Perhaps surprisingly, there was little need to talk once we set out for the shortened harvest quite a bit more than an hour later. It was unnecessary effort to use words when it was so much simpler to communicate instantly with a glance or a gesture. The weather and the water seemed to know this, having conspired to prolong our recent state by producing a thick milky fog that clung to the sea despite the distant glare of the rising sun. So we went out in the trusty rowboat, quiet, mostly blinded, and with the sounds of the world muted by mists.

The harvesting was intimate; the fog prevented us from operating within the wide expanse of quietude we’d come to call home. Instead, it was as if only our boat and the patch of rocks and the algae existed. And the seawater of course, but that never changed. We sang Lara’s song at times, using it as an aural lighthouse whenever we drifted apart from each other. More than once I imagined some other sailor braving the poor visibility and passing near to the cove, hearing the peaceful siren song coming from within and wondering what mythical tale we may have sprung up from. Maybe Muireann could even write us an air about it all, someday...

We enjoyed each moment once. And so, the cycles continued...

I woke up one day to find Lara staring at me, a smile on her face.

“Good afternoon,” I murmured.

“Not quite,” she replied.

“I know, but soon enough.” I yawned and stretched. The previous evening’s harvest had begun a little before midnight, and from the sound of the sea I knew it was about time to don the wetsuits and go out for our next blessing from the waters.

“Sleep well?” Lara asked.

“For sure. I’ve slept so damn well since we got here that I think I could probably stay awake the next six months straight and not feel tired.”

Lara giggled. “Really? But somehow you still slept like a log just now?”

“I know, right? Nothing makes sense anymore!” I sat up a bit, surprised to see that we were alone. Odd, she never leaves the tent before waking us both... “Where’s Heather?”

“She’s gone.”

“Bathroom?”

“No, gone for good. She went to Florida to collect seashells with Julie. We’ll catch up with her again someday.”

I sniggered. “That’s actually funny...”

“Well, who knows. It could be true, since she wasn’t here when I woke up.”

“Oh well, it’s just you and me again, sis. Nice while it lasted.”

“Hey, you do know the tent isn’t soundproof, right?” Heather’s voice intruded from outdoors.

We started laughing.

“Now get up, you lazy butts,” she called out. “It’s a long drive to Fort Myers, if you want to come with me!”

Lara and I rolled our eyes. “Whatever!” she sang.

We donned our bathing suits and soon emerged from the tent, blinking in the bright almost-noon light. We barely had time to react as our wetsuits flew through the air.

“So much for a lazy Sunday morning,” I moaned, even as I donned the frigid neoprene.

“I wonder if it’s really a Sunday?” Lara asked idly.

“I have no clue,” I replied. “Couldn’t tell you for a million dollars.”

Heather sniggered. “Well, it doesn’t matter. The seaweed doesn’t care about stuff like that.”

We were all smiles as we set out on the rowboat. Heather plied the oars. Since the reappearance of our sight some eight tidal cycles ago, we’d returned to work in wilder waters. Indeed, many activities had resumed. Our swims at the buoy, paused since the night the bell had gone silent, were back, as was ‘lobster season’. The closing of the trap had only been a temporary respite while we worked the harvest in the cove, so now we feasted anew.

A few hours later, we’d rinsed and hung each slippery strand up at the arbors, which were filling up again. Lara and I left Heather to handle the cleanup while we went to fish for a mid-afternoon meal. Fortune was on our side, and it wasn’t long before we hiked up the path to camp carrying the cleaned catch in our bucket. Our noses were soon filled with the aroma of the small campfire that Heather was sitting beside.

“Any luck?” she sang, grinning.

“Funny ... Why do I feel like I should kick the bucket over?” I quipped.

Lara tittered. “Don’t kick the bucket. Then I’d be sad!”

We joined Heather at the fire. The afternoon was quite cool. It was evident that fall was pressing its fingers further southward with each day.

“I was thinking that we—”

I stopped in mid-word, my eyes falling upon some clothes bags, sitting on the ground near a tree. It took me a long moment to remember that they were ours. Lara caught my gaze and gave them a funny look as well.

“What’s that about?” I asked quietly, as Heather placed the first fish on the fry pan.

“Frej got here last night. And he’s leaving in an hour.”

Lara and I glanced at each other, and for the first time in I couldn’t even say how long, there was a flash of concern in her expression.

“Seriously?” she asked. “Is something wrong back home?”

“No, no, everything’s fine,” Heather said calmly.

“Oh ... So you’re kicking us out,” I said.

Heather looked at us quite happily. “Yeah ... Unless you want to miss more than two weeks of school. Then sure, you can stay longer and catch the next ride to your house, but that won’t be for another while.”

Lara gaped at her. “Wait, we’ve already missed the first couple of weeks?”

Heather nodded, suppressing a satisfied smile.

“Damn,” I breathed. “Has it really been that long?”

“Well, either that or Birgitte and the rest of her crew have lost track of time. But the invoices in the office this morning say that it’s the middle of September. And you were right Matt, it is a Sunday!”

For a long moment, my stomach felt rather strange. Is this ... okay? Moms are going to be pissed! Then Lara and I grinned at each other. Yeah right!

“Like, when is the next ride back home?” she asked.

Heather shook her head and chuckled. “It’s today, Lara.”

“We can stay one more day,” I said. “I mean, if we leave now, we won’t get home until like, after midnight. Too late to then get up the next morning and go to school.”

“Or, you’ll be home just in time for the next sleep cycle,” Heather countered, her eyes glinting. “But you can always stay in a hotel somewhere, if you have to, and start school on Tuesday. Doesn’t matter too much. What’s another day, when you’ve missed so many already?” she teased.

“Okay,” Lara murmured, her tone drooping a bit. “I mean, I knew we weren’t going to be here forever, but ... I guess it’s time.”

“It’s time,” Heather murmured in agreement.

I glanced again at our bags, feeling unusually calm given the sudden uncertainty of the future that had been left in the wake of this discovery. How quickly the tidal waves can sneak up and sweep through...

Heather passed out the fish, at once crispy and tender. As always, we ate in silence, appreciating the flavor and the peace of the present. The second and third servings followed, equally as good, to the point that we ate every last white flake before dropping our paper plates into the fire.

Sated, Lara asked the question that was on both of our minds before the meal had paused all thought. “I take it you’re staying here?”

“Yeah. There’s a few weeks left of good harvesting. I’ll probably keep at it until the first week of October. But I’m packing up the camp tonight, and I’m going to stay with Birgitte for the rest of the time.”

“No more silent sea?” Lara asked.

“Nope! It’s time to get to know my aunt better. I owe her at least that much.” Heather gazed out at the cove for a long while. “Well, I owe her a lot more than that. But it’s a start.”

Lara and I nodded, and then we looked around at what had been our perfect home, feeling overwhelmed at the thought of it being dismantled before the next tidal cycle ... Everything was being swept away today.

“And then what, love?” Lara’s voice fell into a soft whisper as she spoke. “Which way will you be heading?”

Heather gave us an impish smile. “I’m not quite sure. There’s a few things to talk about first.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, when I was up at Birgitte’s while you were fishing, I asked her for my messages.”

“Messages? Is that a joke?”

“Well, I thought it was a joke! Before I came up here, I told her that no matter what phone calls or letters came for me, I didn’t want to even know about them. Not unless I asked. And until today, I never asked.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t send you anything,” I said sheepishly.

She eyed us. “Oh, I actually was super happy to see not a single message or letter from you!”

“You’re just lucky we didn’t have your address,” Lara quipped, “or Birgitte might’ve had to rent a storage unit for all of Matt’s lovesick letters!”

We all laughed at the image.

“Well, I’m hoping I have Ireland to thank for that not happening,” Heather said.

“True,” I agreed, my insides warming at the memory of my friend. “So did you get anything at all?”

She nodded and indicated our bags. Lara shrugged at me and went over to them, soon pulling an obvious envelope from the side pocket.

“What is it?” she asked Heather as she returned to the fire.

“A really funny letter.”

Lara held it out to her, but Heather shook her head.

Lara glanced at the return address. “Do you know this guy?”

“Nope. Go ahead and read it, love. And let’s see what new horizon lines shake out.”

I watched as my sister pulled the contents out of the envelope, unfolded the stack of sheets, and started to read.

Dear Ms. Martin,

I apologize for the informal format of this letter, but I am traveling at the moment and I did not have my official stationary on hand. It was a wonder I was able to find a typewriter to use at all; Manhattan, this place is surely not. However, I did not wish to wait until I returned home to write this missive, the length of which I sincerely apologize for in advance despite not even having completed the first paragraph. But I am in a state of significant enthusiasm, and this invariably leads to excessive explanations.

I am a good friend of Chip Warren. He and I frequent some of the same arts and social circles in the City, and over the years our friendship has grown close not only because of his remarkable character, but also because of his taste in the visual arts. Though my primary interests lie in music and dance, I am also a collector of photographic works, particularly those that are taken of great artists in the aforementioned fields. More broadly, Chip and I share a similar appreciation for what we affectionately call ‘abandoned artists’, which I insist that you do not take the wrong way. It simply means that at times one encounters certain people who abandon themselves so fully to their creative work, to the point that whoever interacts with said work emerges from the experience transformed.

Last week I received a phone call from Chip, advising me of a project he’d had the pleasure to participate in, and he noted that he had commissioned a work in the series. This was noteworthy but not particularly unusual, as he has often done this in the past. What was unusual, indeed unique, was his assertion that he had finally found proof for his side of a debate that he and I have been arguing for years, if not decades by now. Indeed, to understand the thrust of my letter to you, Miss Martin, you must know that even as a collector of photography, I never believed in the technique of photography itself. This is a fine point which could easily wear out the ribbon on this ancient machine, so I will attempt to keep it succinct.

My long-running discussion with my friend relates to whether photography technique itself is transformative. It is clear that photographs themselves can transform a viewer; such a statement is undeniable. But without exception, for me, the photos with this rare power are the ones with transparent technique. The dancer, the musician, half-lit and held in contrast by the release of the shutter ... The question is whether the dance or the music is evident in their expression, and if so, then the technique has by necessity disappeared, allowing us to see the subject in their most exposed state. However, Chip always insisted that technique itself could be both apparent and transcendent; and yet he has never provided me with a single example in so many years. Thus the debate continued.

“Wow, this guy really likes to go on,” Lara remarked.

“Says the girl who wrote Other Side...” I teased.

Heather gave us a questioning look. I grinned after giving my sister a sidelong glance. “Lara wrote a song after you left, and it was like five-hundred pages long! We had to rent a storage unit to hold it all!”

Lara rolled her eyes and swatted me with the letter. “It was your idea!” she exclaimed. “Now let me keep reading.”

All of this discourse is pedantic and likely of little importance to yourself, someone who I assume sees the world in ways so very differently than I do. I will not try to convince you that my debate with Chip is even valid, but merely tell you that it existed in my mind and thus it affected how I understood photography.

But enough of the generalities. Chip was emphatic that I make the journey to the location of the exhibit, and therefore I hired a driver and car to take me out for a weekend to the far reaches of Long Island, where I would visit his new endeavor and then spend the evening at his lovely vacation house smoking cigars and partaking of his fine collection of claret. All told, a promising weekend, even if his boast should prove inadequate, as I assumed it would.

I departed late morning. Having not been advised of the nature of the exhibit, I believed the address to be mistaken as we pulled into the parking lot of what was clearly a rehabilitation center for people with vision concerns.

At this point, I once again will need to restrain myself to prevent the ink from running out. But it will suffice to say that my entire conception of photography was shattered within the first few minutes of entering that most unlikely place. The work I saw there was a view into a world I never imagined I would see. Leila’s world, of course, and that of several other persons who I’d never known; and yet I found myself involuntarily inhabiting their very being. (It has been some fifteen hours since I last stood before the display, and I continue to have physical reactions to the memory of it.)

“Hmm, ‘physical reactions’?” I mused. “Why do I get the feeling that we’re not your biggest fans anymore?”

Lara sniggered as she considered the multitude of pages that remained of the letter. “He could have just said ‘Hey, I really liked your exhibit,’ but then what would he have done with his time?”

“Oh, but read on, Lara,” Heather said, laughing.

Although I know Leila only casually, I am certainly aware of her condition and have always admired how she spoke so honestly of it. The tendency to see such a situation as a negative trait is instinct, of course, hearkening back to our basest origins. Survival of the fittest ensures that such things are rarely an advantage. This view is, of course, crude and cruel, and I abhor the thought of it.

Fortunately, we are more enlightened and can view her inherited condition as a challenge to overcome. This then is human nature, encouraging us to rise above those things that hold us down. Furthermore, we may simply see her as an equal, where the state of her vision is merely what it is: a part of her person, and while different than what we ourselves might observe, it is no unusual challenge, and no special benefit either.

I’d hoped, and even imagined that I fit into the latter category. Indeed, Leila always struck me as a talented young woman, with a formidable gift of empathy and a quiet sense of daring that went beyond what most of us would ever feel. But I need not tell you about her, a person who I am certain you know far more intimately than I ever will. No, my point is the following: for the past fifteen hours, I’ve been wondering if my own sight, surprisingly perfect given my advanced age, is the dullest possible option I could have been brought to life possessing. After inhabiting and wandering through the utterly remarkable visual landscapes presented on the walls of that gallery there, my own sight now seems a banal and coldly precise tool with which to observe the world.

This is, frankly, a stunning discovery, though I suspect you might feel I make far too much of it. But I can only speak of my experience; whether I make too much of it or not, it is what I saw in that room, repeatedly, as I stepped through each photographic doorway that was offered to me.

I will leave aside the radically new personal understanding you have given me of my friend’s daughter. That is a true gift for which I will always be indebted to you. And I will leave aside the depth and breadth of the work itself, a fact that becomes even more monumental considering it was done in some four months. (This feeling of incredulity was expanded further upon arriving at my host’s house and finding on display in his living room a sculpture - for that is the only adequate word to describe such an incredible construction of metal and glass - that was the physical manifestation of the visional transformation I’d just had the privilege of experiencing.)

Yes, I will leave all that aside, for those gifts have been delivered, from you to me, and I will hold them most dear.

What cannot be left aside is the most valuable contribution, the one that is not yet fully delivered, and indeed by its very nature will never be, until I am laid to rest in the earth: you have made me see photography itself in a completely different light. This is remarkable, considering my age and the opportunity I have had in my life to allow myself to be fully immersed in the creative world, even if it has mostly been as a dilettante.

I will never quite see things the same, Miss Martin. And not only will this apply to all I see from today going forward, but also to everything I have ever seen in my past. Indeed, I now have an intense fever to return home and look at every single photograph that I own with this new sight that you have blessed me with. Mine eyes may indeed be a cold and precise tool with which to take them in, but the true vision is found elsewhere, within the endless potential you have shown me. Until yesterday I hadn’t considered this to be a possibility, let alone something I would experience first-hand.

“Huh, he really is your biggest fan,” Lara said quietly. “What’s he getting at, though?”

“You’ll see,” Heather replied enigmatically.

“I think he’s going to ask you to marry him,” I joked.

She rolled her eyes. “Yep, nailed it...”

I am tiring, having hardly slept last night, and I fear that I am making little sense. I will soon arrive at my purpose in contacting you, but I must first explain my actions since leaving the gallery. Please bear no ill will against Chip or Leila; I asked them to put me in touch with you, but they said you were traveling and not to be contacted. Leila in particular was adamant that I not seek you out, though in the end she would not explain the reason for her insistence. This was quite strange, as a matter of fact: it was abundantly clear that she had a great and abiding admiration for you, and yet she would not answer any of my questions in that regard. Indeed, they both spoke so little of you during my entire visit that I began to wonder if you truly existed. You were the nameless artist, invisible, and yet you were gripping my heart and my mind as if you were in the room.

“Told you!” I said.

“You’re silly, Matt. Now let her read, or you’re going to miss your ride home with Frej!”

Lara folded up the papers impishly, making to put them back in the envelope. “Hmm, if that’s the case, I’m stopping... !”

“I actually do want to hear his proposal, now,” I said. “Or does the ink run out? That would be hilarious. ‘Miss Martin, will you mar—’ and it ends there.”

Heather tittered wildly. “You’ll just have to wait and see!”

Lara continued.

Again, my hosts are not at fault for my intrusion on your life. My persistence is both a virtue and a vice, and in this case, I hope it may yet turn out to be a virtue; should it not, then I apologize sincerely, profusely, and wholeheartedly.

Upon taking my leave of Chip and his daughter, I returned to the gallery, intent on finding information that should have been simple to acquire. And yet, it was with far too much effort that I finally discovered your name. The woman at the counter, while kind, absurdly had no inkling of it. The prints themselves appeared entirely unsigned at first, but even upon noticing a peculiar watermark common to them all, this was of no help. In the end, my driver proved invaluable again, discovering a small plaque that was effectively hidden behind the gallery doors, a most disadvantageous situation about which I lodged a serious complaint to the formerly mentioned attendant at the counter. She seemed disinterested, however, and I confess I did not escalate the grievance to a more senior person because of my desire to continue my journey. For this I apologize, but time was pressing.

I proceeded to take full advantage of my car, traveling to Montauk armed with only a single piece of information: a name. I arrived to this charming fishing village and I imagine I made a bit of a scene, asking every person I came across if they knew of you. I started with the art galleries in town, and then moved to some of the other establishments along the main street. It seemed a strange dream, that no one should know of you.

At last, I had some unexpected fortune. A young woman of Leila’s age overheard my question and mentioned that she attended high school with someone who shared the name with the person I was seeking. I was advised to visit the marina, where her family ran a fish market. This I did straightaway, though I had doubts that this could be the same person.

I reach the point in this excessively long letter where I must ask for your forgiveness once more. I do not know what situation I have blundered so blindly into, but upon reflection, I realize I should have taken the advice of my gracious hosts, particularly that of my friend’s daughter. Your parents were most kind, but I could soon see that something was gravely amiss and that you were not merely traveling for pleasure or business. But by then I was too far into it to give up. I pressed your parents for a way to contact you, and it was with some reluctance that they offered me the address to which I soon will send you this letter, even against my better judgment.

“Jeez, Heather,” Lara remarked. “Smart move, telling Birgitte to hold your mail. This dude doesn’t give up!”

“Yeah, but honestly, this wasn’t quite what I was thinking anyone would ever send me, when I told her that!” Heather replied with amusement. “Thankfully, it’s almost over, though.”