The Road Home Read online

  He removed the other cameras, setting each one on the bed and identifying it. “Zeiss Nettar,” he said. “Duaflex II, Yashica-Mat, Leica IIIf. These all look like they’re in good condition.”

  He lifted out a square black box with no identifying marks on it. Removing the cover, he stared at the contents for a long time, hoping that what he was seeing was real. He almost didn’t dare to touch it but couldn’t resist picking it up. “This is a Hasselblad 1600F,” he said, awed by the find. He turned the camera over, inspecting it. “And it’s in perfect condition.” He looked at his father. “This was Grandpa’s?”

  His father nodded. “I found them in his house after he died. Never even knew he had them.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about them?” Burke asked.

  His father shrugged. “Guess I didn’t think much about them,” he said. “Just a bunch of old cameras. Everything’s digital now. I didn’t know you’d be interested.”

  “I would have been very interested,” Burke said sharply. “Do you know how rare this camera is?” He held up the Hasselblad. “You almost never see them, and certainly not in this condition.” He indicated the other cameras. “And these are all great, too. I wish you’d told me about them sooner.”

  “Like I said, it never occurred to me anyone would be interested. I was about to put them up on this auction site Lucy told me about.”

  “On eBay,” Lucy told Burke.

  “Figured we could get a couple dollars for them,” said Burke’s father.

  “Yeah, well, you would have made some collector very happy,” Burke said. He couldn’t believe his father had almost practically given away such gorgeous cameras. Any one of them was a prize, even the Hawkeye, which was a common find for under ten bucks but which was still a beautiful little piece.

  “You might as well have them,” his father said. “I can’t be bothered to figure out how to sell them on the computer, anyway.”

  “Hooray for being a Luddite,” Burke whispered under his breath. “Thanks, Dad,” he said more loudly. Then he thought of something. “How come Grandpa never talked about being a photographer?”

  “I don’t think he really was one,” his father answered. “He was always getting into one hobby or another, but never long enough to really do anything with it. I imagine this was just one of his fancies. You take after him in that way.”

  Burke resisted sharing the response that first came to mind. Instead, he picked up the Zeiss and pressed the delicate little button that opened the case. The bellows extended smoothly. He moved the levers that set the aperture and shutter speeds, and both seemed to function as they should. The unassuming cardboard box really had yielded up a load of unexpected treasures.

  “I wonder where I can get film around here?” he thought aloud.

  “I’m sure we can find someplace,” Lucy assured him.

  “I can always order some online,” said Burke. He’d set down the Zeiss and was looking at the Yashica-Mat. It was a stunning camera, its black metal housing solidly fashioned and its twin lenses nearly perfect in design. He couldn’t wait to run a roll of film through it. For the first time since the accident he felt himself excited about something.

  His father turned to leave. “Glad to see you like them,” he said. “If I find any more, I’ll bring them up.”

  Any more? Burke thought. Any more and I’ll have a heart attack. The Hassy alone was enough of a find. He could live on the excitement from that for years.

  “Was he really going to sell these on eBay?” he asked Lucy, who remained seated at the end of the bed.

  She nodded. “He didn’t think they were worth anything.”

  “Why didn’t he even tell me about them? I’m a photographer, for Pete’s sake. Didn’t it even cross his mind that I might be interested in vintage cameras?”

  “He doesn’t do it on purpose, Burke,” said Lucy.

  “I don’t know,” Burke countered. “Part of me thinks he does. I mean, look at these.” He indicated the cameras scattered around the bed. “These are in perfect condition. But he never said a word.”

  The more he thought about it, the madder he became. How dare his father keep these from him? There was no way it hadn’t been done deliberately.

  “Maybe they remind him too much of his own father,” Lucy suggested.

  “Why would that bother him?” said Burke. “They always got along.”

  “I don’t know,” Lucy said. “It’s just a thought. When our mother died—our father had passed many years before—my sister and I cleaned out her house. I remember finding a china kitten in a box of odds and ends. Its head had clearly been broken and glued back on. I distinctly remembered it always being on our mother’s dressing table. I used to sit on the floor and watch her put on make-up, and the kitten always sat next to her bottle of Oil of Olay. Seeing it made me think of those times, and I wanted to keep it, but my sister and I had agreed that we would discuss each item before we took it for our own. So I showed her the kitten and asked her if she wanted it. I was surprised at her reaction. She said she’d hoped never to see that figurine again. When I asked her why, she said that one time, during a fight, our father picked the kitten up and threw it at our mother. It missed her and hit the wall, which is how it had broken. Later our father fixed it, and apparently our mother forgave him, but to my sister that kitten was nothing but a reminder of a time when she was frightened of our father.”

  “Did you keep it?” asked Burke.

  Lucy nodded. “It’s still on my dresser. And when I look at it, I don’t see my parents arguing. I see my mother getting ready to go out somewhere wonderful. But for my sister it’s a painful reminder of something she would rather forget.”

  “I still don’t know why Dad wouldn’t want to think about my grandfather,” Burke said.

  Lucy stood up. “You never know what people are thinking,” she said as she gathered up the cardboard box and set it on the floor. She looked at Burke. “Not unless you ask.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Even with Old Jack standing still, Burke was having difficulty focusing the camera. Mostly this was because he had to balance on the crutch while trying to work the camera knobs with one hand. He could do one or the other but hadn’t quite gotten the hang of doing both. So far he’d wasted two shots, and with only ten on the roll, he didn’t have any more to spare.

  The fact that he was outside at all was a testament to the power of the cameras to inspire him. After finding no stores that carried the kind of film he required, he had placed an order for some with an online store. Well, Lucy had placed it, as Burke still wasn’t up to attempting the stairs. But he’d spent the two days waiting for the film to arrive getting himself comfortable with going up and down stairs again, until he was able to do it with a minimum of anxiety.

  Now he was standing in the paddock, holding the Yashica-Mat in his hands and trying to focus. Old Jack, completely uninterested in his role of model, flicked his tail and whickered softly. Burke had brought an apple for him, but fishing it from his pocket was currently impossible without either falling over or dropping the camera.

  “Need some help?”

  Will Janks opened the paddock gate and came inside. He was dressed in jeans and a Modest Mouse T-shirt, looking as if he’d just come from a concert. He walked slowly over to where Burke was doing his balancing act and, without prompting, reached into the pocket of Burke’s hoodie and withdrew the apple. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked.

  “That’s it,” Burke said. He was trying not to think about how Will’s hand had brushed against his stomach.

  “Want me to feed it to Jack?”

  Burke nodded. “I’m trying to get some test shots,” he explained. “I want to see if the camera is working.”

  Will walked over to the horse and rubbed him behind his ears. Old Jack, smelling the apple, nuzzled Will’s neck.

  “Just a second,” Burke instructed. He rested the camera on his arm cast and fiddled with the focusi
ng knob until the fuzzy images of Will and Jack became crystal clear. “Okay, give him the apple.”

  Will held the apple out to Old Jack, who immediately reached for it. Will, turning to Burke, smiled as the horse’s mouth touched his fingers.

  Burke released the shutter and advanced the film. “One more,” he said.

  Will grinned. “Tell it to Jack,” he said. “I can hold on to this apple only for so long.”

  Burke took the second photo just as Old Jack took what was left of the apple into his mouth and Will threw his head back, laughing. “That’s great,” Burke called out. “Thanks.”

  “When will you know if they came out all right?” Will asked.

  Burke sighed. “Good question,” he said. “Normally, I would develop them myself, but obviously I can’t do that here. I’ll have to send the film out. So we’re looking at two weeks or more.”

  “I bet there’s a place in Montpelier that can do it,” Will said. “I can search around if you want.”

  “Thanks, but that’s too much trouble,” said Burke. “Besides, I’m kind of fussy about who develops my film. I’ll figure something out.”

  “What do you need to do it yourself?” asked Will.

  Burke thought for a moment. “Not a lot, actually,” he said. “I’m shooting black and white for now. I could develop that myself, no problem. And if I had a scanner, I could just scan the negatives in.”

  “UPS does deliver out here, you know,” Will said.

  Burke nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “Right now I just want to take a bunch of pictures. I’m still getting used to being a monopod.”

  Will looked around. “No offense to Old Jack, but there’s not much to take pictures of around here,” he said. “I know a place that would be great, though.”

  “Yeah?” Burke said. “Where’s that?”

  “Old farm about half an hour from here,” Will told him. “There’s not much left but some stone foundations, but it’s real pretty.”

  “Thanks,” Burke said. “But half an hour in a car and walking around an overgrown farm with a bum leg doesn’t sound like the best idea. I think I’ll just stay around here for today.”

  “Come on,” Will coaxed. “It’s a beautiful day, you’ve got a chauffeur, and I promise you it will be worth it. Best pictures you’ve ever taken.”

  “I don’t know,” said Burke hesitantly. “It sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

  “All right,” Will said. “I give up. Stay here and shoot the same old horse over and over. That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  Burke looked at Old Jack, who stared back sullenly. The prospect of looking at that face all day was suddenly very depressing. “Okay,” he said. “But you have to promise to catch me when I trip.”

  “You got it,” Will promised. “I’ll go tell Lucy what we’re doing. Can you get in the truck by yourself?”

  Burke looked at the pickup parked behind them. “No chance,” he said.

  “Then just stay put,” Will said. “Do you want me to get anything from the house?”

  “Yeah,” Burke said. “There’s a bunch of film up on my bed. Grab five rolls of the Efke R100. The boxes are green and gray. You can’t miss them.”

  “Efke R100,” Will repeated. “Got it. Be right back.”

  As the young man trotted toward the house, Burke made his way out of the paddock. With the camera hanging by its strap around his neck, he was able to move with a little more confidence. But there was no way he was getting into Will’s truck without assistance, so he stood beside it, leaning on the truck bed and waiting for Will’s return.

  Five minutes later Will was back, the requested film in his hand. “Lucy says if I break you, I have to buy you,” he said as he opened the passenger-side door. “Since I’m pretty much broke, I guess I’ll have to take good care of you.”

  “How should we do this?” Burke asked, eyeing the truck seat, which seemed impossibly high.

  “Like this,” said Will, putting one arm around Burke’s shoulders and the other under his thighs. Burke felt himself lifted up, but before he could express surprise, he was sitting in the truck and Will was putting the crutch in the back and shutting the passenger-side door. He walked to the other side of the truck and got in. “There,” he said as he started the truck. “That was easy. Put your seat belt on.”

  The ride wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as Burke had feared. Will drove slowly, the road was smooth, and Burke’s leg remained stable. Only once or twice did he feel a twinge of pain, and even those were mild compared to what he’d felt on the drive up a week before. He hoped it meant he was healing more quickly than expected and could go home sooner than the doctor had predicted. That thought alone brightened his mood considerably.

  “It might get a little rough now,” Will said as he turned off the main road and onto what amounted to little more than a dirt track. But even this was not bad. When finally Will brought the truck to a stop, Burke was almost tempted to try getting out on his own. But his crutch was in the back, and Will was at the door before he could do anything, anyway. A moment later he was standing on the ground.

  “So where’s the farm?” he asked as Will got a backpack from behind the seat and put the film into it.

  “You’re looking at it,” Will replied, nodding in the direction of a field of grass. “What’s left of the house is over there.” He pointed, and Burke followed the line of his hand to what looked like a low stone wall. “There’s a pond on the other side of that rise,” Will added.

  Will set off into the grass, making a path through it for Burke to walk on. The grass was only knee height, and it parted easily. Still, Burke knew that it could be slippery, and he made sure to move slowly. And Will was always there, never more than a foot or two away, watching him.

  The area around the foundation was bare, the stone walls forming a kind of island in the sea of grass. Wildflowers, mostly brown-eyed Susans, grew out of the cracks. Tired from the walk, Burke lowered himself onto one of the walls and looked around. The walls made a basic rectangle, the long sides no more than thirty feet and the short ones perhaps twenty. The space between them was empty except for some rotting timbers and a section of flat rocks scorched black. That’s where the hearth was, Burke thought.

  “Whose farm was this?” he asked Will.

  Will shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never really thought about it.”

  Burke surveyed the area. “You say the pond is over there?” he asked, nodding at a point west of the house.

  “Want to see it?” Will asked. “It’s beautiful.”

  Burke stood up and once more followed Will through the grass. They walked away from the road, toward a small stand of trees. For a moment Burke thought they wouldn’t be able to get past the trees, but then a path appeared between them, narrow and winding. They passed through the trees, and Burke saw the pond before them, its water shining gold beneath the sun. He realized that the trees curved around the edge of the pond, concealing it from view.

  “It’s like we walked through some invisible door into another world,” he said.

  “I told you it was beautiful,” said Will.

  The pond was not terribly big—perhaps forty feet across. It formed what appeared to be an almost perfect circle. On the far side an enormous rock broke the surface, its top rising a foot or two above the water. Two red-eared sliders sunned themselves on it, oblivious to their observers.

  On the side where Burke and Will stood, the trees cast shadows over the ground. Here the grass gave way to earth, creating a short stretch of beach. A log, placed sideways, formed a low bench. Burke went to it and sat down. Will joined him a moment later.

  “Have you gone in the water?” Burke asked him.

  “A couple times,” said Will. “My guess is the pond is fed by an underground stream. The top couple of feet are nice and warm, but when you dive down, it gets really cold.” He flashed a smile. “It’s a good place for skinny-dipping.”

  “I’ll have
to take your word for it,” said Burke. “This cast is not going near that water. With my luck, I’d sink straight to the bottom.”

  “Well, I didn’t bring you all the way out here to sit and stare at a couple of turtles,” Will said.

  Burke turned to him. “Then why did you bring me out here?” he heard himself ask. He hadn’t meant for the comment to sound provocative, but it did. What’s wrong with me? he wondered. It was as if something about the place had enchanted him.

  “To take pictures,” Will said. He held up the backpack containing the film. “Remember?”

  Burke laughed. “Actually, I did forget,” he admitted. “I was too busy admiring the scenery.”

  “What do you want to shoot?” Will asked. “You’ve got trees, water, and a rock. Take your pick.”

  “I don’t know,” Burke said, flipping open the Yashica-Mat’s viewfinder. “Let’s see what the glass eye thinks is interesting.” Without getting up, he slowly panned the camera along the shore of the pond, watching the image reflected in the camera’s eye shift and change. Several times he paused, thinking he might have found something, but each time he decided not to trip the shutter.

  “What are you doing?” Will asked, peering at Burke as if examining a strangely behaving dog.

  “Cutting out everything but the picture,” Burke explained. “When you try to see with your own eyes, there’s too much. Things get lost. But the camera’s eye sees only one small part of the world at a time.” He moved the camera another inch. “There,” he said. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?” Will said, looking at the direction in which Burke was pointing the Yashica-Mat.

  Burke didn’t answer. He was busy focusing and composing the image. When he had it, he pressed the shutter release. “That one will be good,” he said happily as he advanced the film.

  “But what was it?” Will demanded.

  “Grass,” Burke answered. “A dragonfly. Water.” He shrugged. “You’ll have to wait and see.” It was always impossible for him to describe his best photographs in words. There was just something about them, some inner essence—he hated that term, but it was the best description he could come up with—that lit up the photo from within and brought it alive. It didn’t matter if he was shooting people or landscapes, dogs or carnivals. His best pictures were alive.