“Of course I am.”

“David thought it would be fun if you took our engagement pictures. Not the wedding, of course,” Brit said. “You’ll be in the wedding party and can’t very well be running around with a camera.”

I pictured myself in an eggplant or fuchsia dress with flowers in my hair, standing beside three of Brit’s friends dressed exactly the same. “I’d love to do your engagement pictures.”

David smiled. “That’s great. I know whatever pictures you take will be fantastic. Brit tells me how talented you are.”

“Thank you.” My stomach tumbled a little. How many brides and grooms had I photographed who’d been hungover from the rehearsal dinner and rallied to project the image of the perfect couple? How many families had used the wedding stage to prove they weren’t dysfunctional?

I missed Clare in times like this. We’d commiserated when Dad had announced he was marrying Sandra. All the side-eye and suppressed giggles when that happy couple fawned over each other. There was no one else now who would understand the true meaning of one of my eye rolls or smirks.

“I don’t have much of a family,” David said. “And you two only have each other. I feel honored that Brit is allowing me into your inner circle.”

Our inner circle. Brit, Clare, and I had been an oddly tight little, disjointed unit bound by our mother’s death, our father’s abdication, and our own destructive habits that kept us looking out for each other. And now the remaining Stockton sisters had David, leaving me to wonder what was wrong with him.

42 HIM

42

HIM

THEN

Monday, January 17, 2022

2:00 p.m.

It took me three days to get up the nerve to visit Marisa in the hospital. I spent too many hours figuring out how to get inside unnoticed. I’d finally resolved to dress in an orderly’s scrubs. These individuals moved about the hospital easily and often went unnoticed. Credentials were an issue, but that turned out to be easier than I thought as I lingered in a coffee shop near the medical center. An older man who went to pay his bill at the register left his lanyard and identification at his table. As his head was turned, I swiped them and slipped outside to the busy sidewalk.

It took some asking around to find Marisa’s floor after she’d been moved from the surgical unit, but again motivation was a powerful tool. I was soon stepping into her room with an armload of clean sheets I’d swiped from a cart.