Page 14 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

“I get it,” I said, though I wasn’t completely sure I did. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the familiar way people spoke about Johnny. Like they knew him better than I did. Like there had been more than just the miles of physical distance between us.

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you with all my reminiscing. Why don’t I show you to the darkroom?” Olivia clapped her hands together.

“Sure.” I adjusted the bag on my shoulder. “Thanks.”

I followed her back out of the classroom to the single white windowless door down the hall. Above it, the telltale darkroom light was fixed to the wall—a red bulb caged in thick white wire. When it was on, it meant the door shouldn’t be opened for risk of ruining the work going on inside.

Olivia turned the knob and let the door swing open, extending her hand with another flourish, and when I stepped inside, my throat constricted. The acrid scent of the processing chemicals was so nostalgic that it woke a numbed pain in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Even after I’d left home for Byron, I made sure I was enrolled in a photography class every semester so that I’d have access to the campus darkroom. It wasn’t just the comfort of the darkness or the familiar smells. It was the soft click of the egg timer on the shelf. The sound of the fan on the enlarger.

The tangible feeling of Johnny’s presence was already beginning to take root from where it clung to the shadows. It drifted through the humid air, invisibly swirling around me as a string of memories skipped through my mind. Johnny had spent half of high school in this room, most of the time while he was supposed to be in some other class. I’d have to track him down after school when he didn’t show up at the car, and I’d find him here, working away and completely unaware that the bell had even rung.

Olivia leaned into the doorjamb behind me. “I found a few things Johnny left behind. They’re in his cubby there.” She pointed to a row of built-in shelves that each had a set of initials assigned to them. It was the same one he’d had when we went to school there. “Put them in an envelope for you.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Her gaze dropped to the bag tucked beneath my arm. “What are you working on?”

I shook my head. “Just sorting through some of the negatives and prints. Trying to make sense of everything so I can get it all to CAS.”

Olivia let her hands slide into her pockets, and I could see her struggling for something else to say. “Well, let me know if I can be any help.”

I answered with a nod and she turned out of the room, but then she stopped herself.

“Actually, what are you doing later?”

I looked at her, a little caught off guard. “Nothing, why?”

“Do you want to grab a drink at The Penny?”

“The Penny?”

“Yeah, it’s still around. Everyone’s there on Friday nights and there’s music. If you’re not doing anything…”

“Yeah.” I grinned. “That sounds great.”

Olivia looked equally surprised and delighted. “Okay, perfect! I have your number, so I’ll shoot you a text when I’m headed over there?”

“Sure.”

She smiled even wider and then she was gone, her footsteps trailing up the hallway in a fading echo.

I let the heavy bag and stack of notebooks in my arms fall onto the worktable, trying to stretch out the tension that had seized my neck. The cubby with Johnny’s initials had a manila folder slipped inside, and I eyed it, trying to decide if I had the energy to poke at the barely stitched-together wound in my chest. I didn’t. Not after that conversation with Olivia.

I took off my jacket, finding the roll of film in the pocket and reading the date again—November 10. I peered down the hallway one more time before I closed the door and got to work. Everything I needed to develop the film was stocked, and I flipped the switch on the red light before I turned off the other.

It took a few seconds for my eyes to begin to adjust, but once they did, the rhythm of the darkroom came back to me. The crimson glow painted the shapes of the room in contrasting colors as I dropped the apron over my head and tied it. The room was colder than the classroom or the hallway, kept cool for the sake of the chemicals. It wouldn’t take long for the temperature to make my hands stiff.

I developed the film and trimmed it, hanging it up on the suspended line over the trays. They would have to dry before I could handle them, but I could already tell that most of the negatives on the roll were blank. There were only eight photos, and I wouldn’t be able to make them out until I could use the light box.

In the meantime, I turned my attention to the negatives I’d brought from Johnny’s, situating myself on the stool and spreading out the contents of the bag before me. I’d gathered up all of the sleeves marked with dates that fell within a few months before Johnny died that also took place in the gorge. I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I hoped I could at least get a handle on what his days out there looked like.

I flipped the switch on the light box and it came to life, filling the room with a soft, rattling buzz. I set the first sleeve of negatives on thesurface, finding the date Johnny had written on the plastic label:August 1, 2023.I moved the magnifier from one photo to the next, but I couldn’t identify many differences between the images, and from the thumbnails, the pictures looked like they were mostly of trees.

Then I opened the notebook for Subject 44, the owl Johnny had been tracking in Trentham Gorge. I skimmed through the pages until I found the correct date. Johnny’s staccato, punctuated handwriting filled the pages, sometimes drooping off the lines as if he had his eyes on the trees as he wrote. The image of him hunched in an outcropping, hood pulled up over his dark hair with a pencil in hand, made the hole in me stretch wider than I thought possible.

There was something so fitting about it. My brother had always been pensive and serious, which made people inquisitive about him, and I think that’s what Olivia had been getting at when she mentioned the kids in her class. Johnny had never cared for anyone’s attention. He was content to be on his own, even if he didn’t want to be far from me, and I imagined that he was truly happy out there alone in the forest for days on end.

The entries in the notebook were labeled by date, time, and location, beginning in September and October 2021. The notes were reports on the subject itself, but Johnny had also detailed his observations of the different locations in the conservation project, cataloging landmarks, erosion patterns, and even climate changes. On August 1, Johnny had seen Subject 44 only once and for a matter of minutes, jotting down a few almost code-like lines I couldn’t totally make sense of.