Camille and Julie only spent the day, although Papa planned to stay longer, to get to know the man who had fathered him. He walked with Camille to the car and hugged her close. “Thank you,” he said. “None of this would have been possible without you.”
“It’s a privilege to be a part of this, Papa,” she said. “I love you so much, and I’m so happy that you found your father. I’ll develop the photos right away and make sure you and Hank get copies to share with everyone.” She hugged him again. “Are you sure you’re all right to come back on your own?”
“More than all right. I feel complete in a way I never have before. Perhaps it’s just the high of discovering so much about the past, but I truly do feel different.” He took a step back. “There’s something else you should know,” he continued. “This fall, I’m going back to Bellerive for a longer stay.”
“Papa, no. You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I won’t be alone, chérie.”
She caught the soft, contented look in his face. “Oh . . . Michel?”
He smiled. “At long last.”
“Ah, Papa.” She was feeling overwhelmed by emotion.
“I know, Camille. Look what has happened this summer. Life as it reveals itself is filled with riches. What will happen, will happen. Worrying will not affect the outcome.”
“You’re right, but how can I not worry?”
“By wishing me well. I waited so long to find happiness. I hope you aren’t making the same mistake, turning away from Finn when he just might be your next great love.”
She flushed, hoping he wouldn’t see her pain. “Finn and I . . . we’ve gone our separate ways.”
Then why, she kept asking herself, did she want to call him immediately, tell him about the extraordinary meeting with Hank Watkins? Why did she wish Finn had been here to see the joy of the reunion? Why did she lie awake at night, remembering every touch, every kiss, every whisper?
Boarding the plane for Dulles, Camille felt a familiar beat of panic. She slowed her steps, took a deep breath, and walked forward. Maybe she’d never lose her fear of flying, but she was going to do it anyway, because of the destination. Maybe next time, she’d be a little less afraid.
When she got back home, she tried to keep her focus on Julie and work. Yet her wandering heart kept leading her back to Finn. She realized that one reason she kept pushing him away was that he was so alive, so present. And why did she shy away from that? Why was she afraid of the deep intensity of the feelings he stirred in her?
She pondered this as she organized the darkroom to develop the film from the Exakta. Before turning out the lights, she went to the shelf by the mantel and took out her old Leica. She hadn’t touched it in years, not since the last trip with Jace.
She’d paid too much for the Leica at an auction house. Despite Jace’s objections about the cost, she had to have it. After the accident, she had not touched the camera again. There was still film in it—her last pictures of Jace. She’d never developed the film because she didn’t want to expose her final memories of him.
Holding the camera flat on the palm of her hand, she weighed her options. She could put it away again. She could open it right now and destroy the pictures. Or she could expose the film and see what she’d been afraid of seeing for so long.
Deep breath.
Then she turned out the lights and went to work.
Less than an hour later, Camille was looking at the digitized contact sheets from both cameras on her laptop. The pictures from the trip with Jace were good, but now she realized that back then, she was still learning her craft. The photos she’d taken in Vermont showed more confidence and maturity. There was one portrait of her father and Hank that captured their surprise and delight so perfectly that it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
There was one shot Jace had taken of her, a simple snapshot. It had been the year of the unfortunate hairstyle, but her smile blazed across the years—the smile of a young woman who had no idea how hard a loss could hit. There was another shot of the two of them, which she’d taken with the shutter set on a timer.
Irrational as it was, she’d held the notion that once she looked at the pictures, she would see their marriage as it truly was—not perfect. Just perfectly ordinary. An ordinary life. And she’d spent the past five years convinced that their marriage, their love, had been extraordinary, never to be equaled, and certainly not surpassed.
She stared for a long time at the pictures. The final shot was one she’d taken moments before their final climb. There was Jace, grinning and confident, draped in rope and carabiners, ready for adventure.
Her last image of him. “Hi, Jace,” she said softly to the empty room. “It’s good to see you again.”
He had been canonized by gilded memories. She’d forgotten his flaws—and he did have them. He’d been annoyed at her that day, scolding her for taking pictures when she should have been focused on roping up for the climb. He’d never quite understood her passion for photography. Jace had thought the shop was fluff, filled with knickknacks for tourists. He was only human, after all. Yet the flaws were obliterated by the spectacular way he’d died.
Jace was a good man, a fine doctor, and he had loved her. In an act of indisputable heroism, he’d traded his life for hers. Yet sometimes, when he’d been alive, he didn’t see her. Now she faced that truth with a clarity that cut like a knife. “We weren’t perfect,” she said aloud. “We didn’t need to be. And getting over you is not going to take away what we had.”
Deep down, she had the sense that Jace had never been as attentive as Finn, never as interested in her, never as understanding of the things that ignited her passion. But he’d given his life to save her, and nothing would trump that. Now she looked at it a different way. If she didn’t finally move on with her life, what had he sacrificed himself for?
Camille poured herself a glass of wine, taking her camera and Lisette’s out to the front porch. She sat on the top step and looked out at the quiet evening settling over the neighborhood. Julie was at an end-of-summer clambake with a group of friends—and those friends included Vanessa and Jana, surprisingly enough. Bringing home her great-grandfather’s Purple Heart had been the grace note to a wonderful summer.
Camille loaded fresh film into the Leica. Holding it up and looking through the viewfinder was like meeting an old friend again.
You look like a pro, Finn had said to her.
It’s kind of sexy.
Stop it, she thought. But the memory of that day hung on—the drive to Gordes. She still felt the wonder of walking into the house where Willy Ronis had lived, where he’d found his best moments as an artist in the ordinary, everyday life of his family. How well Finn seemed to realize that.
He understood what Jace never had. Photography wasn’t a hobby. Not for Lisette. And not for Camille.
She drank the wine, not fighting the tears. “Ah, Jace. I love you with every inch of my heart,” she said, speaking aloud into the evening air. “I always will. And I’ll never, ever forget you.”
She thought about what Hank Watkins had said. Lisette was my first true love. But life is long, and loving again didn’t take away from the memories.
“I’m still here, Jace, and you’re . . . not,” she went on. “We will never grow old together. We’ll never worry about Julie together. We won’t have any more kids. We both wanted our future so much, but we’ll never get to have one, and I can’t spend my life regretting it. And so I have to say good-bye. For my sake and for Julie’s, I have to. My happily-ever-after is never going to happen with you. But that doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen.”
She finished her wine, then went and picked up the garden stone by the gate, the one with Jace’s initials and the phrase “Always in my heart.” She moved it to the fringe of woods at the end of the backyard, where no one ever went. Then she replaced it with the one from Sauveterre, the one chiseled by Hank in 1944: H+L, Journey Without End. Once again, her thoughts returned to Finn. She mentally relived the first time they’d met—right here on her front porch. He had met her on one of her worst days, and she’d dashed his hopes of finding the last pictures his father had shot.