Free Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve

grown accustomed to the ever present humidity; indeed, it is not uncommon to slip between slightly dampened sheets at night or to retrieve from the armoire dresses that have quite lost their stiffness in the sea air.
    Sometime after she has finished tying up her hair, she crawls into her bed and falls into a troubled sleep. Her dreams are different from any she has ever had before, different in their texture and in their substance. They are somewhat shocking, but not terrifying, since they contain the most private and pleasurable of physical sensations she has ever experienced in her short life. She wakes in a state of much confusion, lying in a tangle of twisted linen, believing she has spoken to John Haskell just moments before, when, of course, she has not. And she wonders fleetingly if there might be something wrong with her, if she has been, in fact, hallucinating, if she is in danger of becoming her mother’s daughter after all. But then she dismisses this speculation, for the dreams that she has had, and the sensations that have been visited upon her, feel, in spite of their extraordinary novelty, welcoming, as is a warm bath. And if these sensations do not seem entirely
good,
they feel deep and authentic. And she is, in truth, loath to watch them thin and dissipate with the morning sun.
    • • •
    That morning, with Philbrick and Cote and, of course, the Haskells still in residence, they are all occupied with photography, an undertaking Olympia finds as intriguing to observe as to participate in. The sittings begin shortly after breakfast, Haskell wisely deciding to start with the children so that they might be released to other pursuits early in the day. The camera is an English one and quite a handsome instrument with its mahogany case and brass fittings. Inside the camera, Haskell explains, is a metal cone lined with black velvet into which one puts the film. Once exposed, it is withdrawn from the other side. The camera holds film for forty exposures, he adds, so there will be enough for several photographs of each of them. Olympia is relieved to see that the camera is one that can be held in the hands and that the enterprise will not be the agonizing one she has heard about — an enterprise in which the unfortunate subject is made to remain still on a chair while the camera, anchored upon a stand, records in a painstakingly long process the rigid expression of the participant, any smile or movement on the part of the subject ruinous to the result.
    To capture the best light, which there is in abundance this day, Haskell uses the front steps for his venue. While one of them is being photographed, the others come and go upon the porch and busy themselves with reading or with conversation or simply with gazing out to sea, a seductive activity that can consume many hours in a day. Olympia takes a chair near to the proceedings and watches Haskell work. And as she watches, she discovers that a dream creates a nonexistent intimacy, that one feels, all the next day after the dream, as though certain words have been said or actions taken
which have not.
So that the object of the dream feels familiar, when, in fact, no familiarity exists at all.
    Haskell, in a white linen suit and cravat, with a straw hat which he removes when he begins to work in earnest, suggests from time to time a tilt of the head, a placement of an arm. Occasionally he reaches across the photographic space and moves the shoulder just so. As might be expected, the children are impatient, and it is an effort for them just to sit still. Olympia is impressed, however, by Haskell’s lack of sentiment in posing his youngest children, Randall and May, waiting for a moment when both have spotted a fishing boat not far off shore and are gazing with rapt but keen attention, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly parted, at the novel sight. Later Olympia will see the photographs after they and the camera have been sent back to Haskell from Rochester, and