In the hall, she walks with stacks of contracts and has just rounded the corner when there’s Peter Darrow walking with a copyeditor.
“You,” Peter says when he spots her. “You feeling better?”
She’s confused till his eyes widen. Beside him, the copyeditor glances at his watch.
“Yes,” she says, placing herself back in a world where everyone believed her sick. Very sick. “Thank you. Probably could’ve come in yesterday, but it was good to have another day to rest.”
“Pneumonia comes on fast like that. I think.” Then Peter puts his hand on the copyeditor’s shoulder. “I’m gonna catch up with you.”
The man looks to Olivia and back at Peter. Then he tilts his head as if he’s just heard someone calling his name before continuing down the hall.
“For the record, I don’t blame you,” Peter says. “For needing time to digest it all.”
“I didn’t need time. I went there.”
Peter’s eyes narrow in confusion, and she sees he has no idea.
“I recognized a man in the photo. His cousin. He set it all up. So I went there. To Baghdad. Met Delan and gave him the photo—a cropped version—and came home the next day.”
At first he continues to study her, unsure. But then it’s as if a cord has been pulled and he’s smiling, laughing, his head tilted back as he grins to the ceiling tiles. “Holy shit. You went there.”
“He was glad I did.”
Peter looks back down, still smiling. “Well, I bet he was. And you?”
“Tired.”
He shakes his head and pats her on the shoulder. “Get some coffee. And listen, I fought for you. Okay? It might feel like it’s over, but it’s not. Remember that. And then let’s talk, because when you’re ready to let them go,” he says, nodding toward the display in the hall, “those photos should be seen.”
Though she knew she wouldn’t win, the contest’s finality still settles within her, a letdown that makes her realize she’d actually held out hope. But then she hears what else he said: a future for the photos. A chance to make a difference. She nods and manages to say “thank you” before watching him disappear.
In the break room, the coffee is dark and stale. She makes a new pot, watching it drip and listening to the ferocious sound of its churning. When it’s done, she stirs in sugar, thinking of Gaziza and her sugar cubes, her long skirts and broad back. Olivia’s only regret is that she didn’t see any of them. Before, you came at a bad time, Delan said to her. We’ve had no problems where we are since. Other places, sure. But for us, it’s been peaceful. Of course peaceful, she knew, was relative, but it still gave her hope—for his sake. And for the future, that one day they would return.
“Is Peter Darrow still married?”
She turns at the question and sees Miller and Hannity, seemingly talking to each other—but obviously intending she hear.
“Happily,” Hannity says. “Heard they’re going on fifteen years.”
Olivia knows she should just walk out of the room. Leave. Let them have their assumptions and accusations and be the bigger person.
“Good to hear,” Miller says. “Marriage is hard. Danger lurks. People wanting things, knowing how to get them.”
There is a silence as they let the words find her. She won’t look at them. Her breeze is gone, and anger scratches in her chest. But instead of saying anything, she walks toward the door, where she sees the damn flyer still taped in place. Their stares press her to the point where when she stops, it’s as if they’ve bumped against her. The contest is looking like a formality, Peter said. A formality. Hannity and his uncle, the one who knows Byron, their editor in chief.
At her desk, she sits and glares toward the break room till they emerge. They’re smiling, and that’s what does it.
“Hannity,” she says as they near. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. How’s your uncle?”
“He’s good,” he says, pausing, momentarily thrown.
Beside him, however, Miller has clued in to her meaning. And she would let this be the end of it, would go back to her work and slog away, dreaming of another day, another trip, another return, but for his response.
“What I don’t get,” he says, and his eyes gleam as if he’s just spotted aces in his hand, “is why you didn’t take photos of what you saw. If you really wanted to win. Isn’t that what photographers do? Wouldn’t that have been a better way?”
Hannity glances at him, as if he’s made a sound he doesn’t understand.
But Olivia understands. “Of what I saw? You mean what I lived.”
In the distance, she sees that office manager she doesn’t like stand. A shocked plea on her face, her hands lifting as though she’s about to conduct an orchestra.
“Fine, then,” Miller says, “worded it wrong.” He shrugs at Hannity as if to say, Yikes, you know how this goes.
And Olivia does. Because she’s been through it. And she knows how it will end, and so she doesn’t care and keeps going, loudly. “Yes, lived it—not saw it. There’s a difference, and if you don’t know that, I’d say you’ve been pretty damn lucky.”
“Oh, now.” His face flushes with reddened shame, but his body goes rigid with pride. He glances to the upstairs landing, where a few editors stand, watching. “Let’s not get crazy here. What I’m saying—”
But he doesn’t get a chance to say anything, because she’s talking.
“See, I wasn’t safe in a car with people who had guns to protect me. I wasn’t on a street with people playing chess or hitting a soccer ball. And, Miller, I’m really sorry about your
