Page 56 of See It Through

With a mouthful of biscuit, I cocked my head in question.

“Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie. I told you Graham was the one interested in your career, not me. I tried not to be, but…your work is too compelling. I have an alert set on my phone for when anything of yours is published.” She wagged her fork over her pancakes. “You take photographs that make me feel things. It makes me wonder how you’ve witnessed what you have and are still able to get up, go out to breakfast, and live a normal life.”

“First, I’m honored to know that despite your disdain for me, you appreciate my work.”

She snorted. “Disdain is a little extreme.”

I raised my brows. “Is it?”

“For the most part, I was indifferent to you until Graham was dying. Then…okay, yeah, you could say I felt disdain. But I’d already been following your career for several years by then. I’d gotten hooked on how you tell a visual story.”

Warmth coated the inside of my chest. She may not have been good at taking compliments, but she was pretty brilliant at giving them. And I’d heard a lot of praise for my photos over the years. I’d won awards, had them hung in museums, but nothing had ever made me feel as tall or proud as I did now. Hannah Kelly wasn’t easy to impress, and I’d done it without being aware. Now that I knew, every photo I took in the future would be done with her seeing it in my mind.

“I learned on the job,” I explained. “A big lesson I took from the vets I met was I was there to work, to document, not be part of the narrative. The only way I was able to do my job was to learn how to detach myself through my camera lens. I met journalists who were so weighed down by what they’d seen they were never the same. The frequency of PTSD amongst the people who cover conflicts is really high.”

“Not you though?”

I inhaled slowly, considering my answer. “I had a pretty volatile childhood, Hannah. I got good at compartmentalizing the bad stuff and locking it away. That helped me in being able to do the same with my work. That’s not to say I haven’t been changed by my experiences. I undoubtedly have. My worldview is a hell of a lot darker than it once was. But at the same time, I think I’m able to understand there’s no black and white. Sometimes, the bad guy is just a scared teenager forced to hold a gun. Sometimes, the guy who looks like a suicide bomber is a distraught husband walking for miles and miles to find medicine for his dying wife.”

She rubbed her lips together, nodding. “You’re going to go back? Once you’re healed, you’re going to put yourself back in danger?”

I bit off a piece of bacon and slowly chewed. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“Right.” After a beat, she perked up and stabbed her fork into her pancakes. “Well, maybe you should break out your camera while you’re here so you don’t get rusty.”

“Maybe I will. Your mom and nephew reminded me it’s just as important to document the beauty in the world too.”

She smiled at me around a mouthful of pancakes, and my fingers twitched. For the second time this meal, I wished I had my camera to document the beauty across from me.

Instead, I dug into my food, the flavors richer than I remembered. That might’ve been the company affecting my taste buds, but it didn’t matter. All I knew was I was enjoying being here with Hannah—talking to her, answering her questions, looking at her. For the time being, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

Until a shadow crossed our table. Right before an excited voice called our names.

“Aunt Hannah! Remi! What are you doing here? Why are you guys having breakfast together?” Jesse bounced on his toes at the end of our table. “Dad, look who’s here. Weird, right?”

Hannah put her fork down to grab her nephew’s hand. “Hey, dude. You convinced Dad to treat you to breakfast?”

“Yep.” Jesse nodded proudly. “I had to drag him out of bed.”

Caleb put his hand on top of his son’s head. “Think it was the other way around, kid.” Then his gaze swept from his sister to me, his expression unreadable. If he was pissed, he wasn’t giving it away.

Hannah didn’t seem alarmed at her brother’s presence. Then again, she hadn’t been the one warned to stay away.

“I’d invite you guys to join us, but I don’t think you’d fit,” she said.

“That’s okay. We’re having guy time,” Jesse proclaimed.

Hannah held her hands up. “Oh, excuse me. I would never intrude on guy time.”

Caleb’s eyes were locked on me. His nostrils flared as he sniffed. “So, this is happening?” he gruffed.

I nodded, bracing myself for what came next. There was no use denying it. I was too old to sneak around. More than that, I didn’t want to.

“Yeah. It’s happening.”

“You’re gonna heed what I told you?”Take it easy on my sister…

“I will.”