By three a.m., I’d given up. I climbed into the car and headed for the offices at TexStar. Bess might have had her suspicions about Maggie and me, but she hadn’t stripped me of my title just yet. I still had my privileges…

I unlocked the dark room adjoining my office. I’d had my private washroom converted when I’d first taken over as executive editor. Developing film was an archaic art, but the hands-on work soothed me somehow.

I took out a handful of undeveloped rolls of film, setting out paper and chemical baths. There were machines out there that could do most of the work on their own, but I liked handling each part of the process myself. There was satisfaction in the feel of the glossy paper in my hands, the mystery of watching the images form like magic… Several hours later, I had dozens of black and white photos hung out on a thin line to dry. There were pictures of Dean and Jackie, working side by side and smiling. Candid shots of Ryan and Henry talking to a concerned-looking mother. But mostly it was Maggie’s face that stared out at me. Crisp and striking… she took my breath away.

Maggie, looking lean and elegant in jeans and a v-neck tee.

Another with her hair tied up, businesslike and confident.

Maggie with a group of children, smiling and tossing her head. Another, as she listened compassionately to a care-worn old woman with tears shining in her eyes…

Soon the tiny room was filled, crisscrossed with drying photographs. Their edges curled, but the images were crystal clear. Maggie filled the room the way she filled my heart. She was everywhere I looked…

I sat staring for a long, long time as the wise words of an old college professor came back to me. He’d taught journalism for decades and I’d looked up to him, perhaps even more than I did my own father…

There’s power in every photograph you take, he’d said. You don’t have the luxury of forgetting that power, not even for a single second…

What you’re capturing is a unique, irreplaceable moment of life, one that will live on for decades, if not centuries to come. The right photograph can help people see the mundane world around them in a whole new light, allow them to understand what they see for the very first time… In a sense,

it’s like giving sight to the blind…

* * *

As soon as the photographs were dry, I gathered them up and tucked them flat into my briefcase. One fast glance around the room, and I locked the door behind me and headed out. With any luck, I could get back to the cottage before Maggie was even awake. There was something I had to tell her… something I had to show her… and it damned well wouldn’t wait. I headed out for the car. I pulled out my cell as I walked, and tapped the screen.

“Joseph?” Bess answered. “It’s about time you called.” She began to complain in a long, breathless stretch. “You leave your responsibilities and go off chasing storms, like a junior reporter… I was beginning to wonder if you were still in one piece. There was a big one that hit, up that direction…”

“I’m fine, Grandmother. All of us are,” I cut her off gently. “We have a lot to discuss… and I wondered if you’re free this evening. I have something I need to tell you…”

I ground the engine and the tires squealed, echoing in the dim parking garage. Then I hit the gas hard and headed for the cottage.

I didn’t want an all-out confrontation. But if it was the only way… I was all in.

* * *

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jackie said. “I haven’t heard from her today. I know she planned to get together with Ryan at some point. He and Dean went over to the warehouse to pack up donations. But she hasn’t been by here.” She looked at me and smiled, draping her stethoscope around her neck. “She’s not always easy, is she?”

“No… but fuck, neither am I,” I answered. Jackie led me away from the clinic and into a more private corner. People waited patiently in a long line out the door. “I thought I could catch her before she left this morning, but she wasn’t home. And the truck was gone.”

“Blood pressures and vaccines today,” she sighed. “No matter how many people you see, the lines never seem to end… Coffee?” she offered. I shook my head.

“So, spill,” she said. “You have that trouble-in-paradise look all over you. Were you an ass, or did Maggie go mule on you?”

I laughed at her bluntness, in spite of all my concerns. “Some of both, I guess,” I answered. “She’s refusing my donations to the foundation. She’s afraid I don’t trust her to take care of herself, to make her own decisions… like I’m trying to control her.”

“Are you?” Jackie asked quietly, tilting her head perceptively.

“I don’t want her to put herself in danger again,” I said, honestly. “There’s so much work she can do right here, and more than enough just organizing daily operations… But she’s determined to keep working in the field, no matter the cost. I intend to marry her, Jackie. Isn’t it my job to keep her safe?”

“Is it, Joe?” she asked. “It’s none of my business, telling people how to live their lives. Me, least of anyone. But let me ask you this…

Is it the woman Maggie is, right now, that you fell in love with… or the woman you want her to be…?” She looked at me kindly. “Can you be sure you’ll still love her, if you try to change the very essence of who she is?”

* * *

“Sorry,” Ryan said. “She said she’d be by at some point, but we haven’t heard from her yet.” I listened as my call went to her voicemail again, and shoved the phone into my pocket.

Dean looked up over a stack of boxes at the back of the warehouse. “Who?... Hey, Joe… Please tell me you’re here to lend a hand…”

“I’m trying to find Maggie,” I said. “She’s not answering her cell.”

“Is she with Jackie? They’re supposed to be over at the auditorium today…”

“I tried the clinic. They haven’t heard from her either.” I paced impatiently. “We had a disagreement last night…”

“You mean you had a fight,” Dean said with an understanding smile. “Nobody has just a disagreement with my sister.”

“What happened?” Ryan asked, his brow furrowed.

“It was over the funding,” I admitted. “And my own goddamned failure to recognize what it was she really needed from me all along.” I looked at my brother pleadingly.

“I remember she used to disappear sometimes when she was little,” I said. “When her dad was drunk and she was afraid…” I stared hard into Ryan’s face. “You were her closest friend… if you have any idea, I’m begging you… I have to talk to her.”

“I haven’t been there for years… It’s not far from the cottage,” he answered gently. “We both went there sometimes when we were kids, when it felt like no one really understood… I can take you…” Henry came around the corner and stood next to Ryan.

“We’ll all go,” Dean said. “There are several miles of woods behind the house. We can spread out and cover more ground. We’ll find her, Joe. It’ll be all right. You two are gonna be all right.”

He clapped me on the back and nodded.

I gripped his hand, and smiled back gratefully.