The Photographer's Return novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Filed

My lawyer called back at eight the next morning.

She was brisk and warm and asked better questions than any doctor I'd ever seen.

When I told her about the billboard, she was quiet for a second.

"Do you still have the registration certificate?"

"It's in a fireproof box on my lap."

"Of course it is," she said, and I could hear her smiling. "Send me a photo of every page. We'll file for the divorce first. The photographs are going to take longer, because I want every single one."

On Thursday morning, June eighteenth, the petition was filed in Santa Clara County.

Warner was served by email at his hotel in Nusa Dua, through the lawyer he used for closings, because she knew he'd answer that one.

He answered within minutes.

I was in Bean's day camp at the rec center, standing in front of eight kids with eight cameras.

The camp counselor had asked Casey to do a photography morning.

Casey had asked me.

"I can't talk to eight children," he'd said. "I can barely talk to one."

So there I was, in the multipurpose room with the folding chairs, holding up an old Canon.

"This is a film camera," I said. "It doesn't have a screen."

"Then how do you see the picture?" said a boy in a dinosaur shirt.

"You don't. Not for a while. You have to guess, and wait, and find out."

They looked at me.

"That's dumb," the dinosaur boy said.

"It's the best part," Bean told him, very fiercely. "Shut up."

My phone buzzed in my back pocket.

WARNER.

I silenced it.

It buzzed again. And again.

"Do you need to get that?" asked a girl with butterfly clips.

"No," I said. "Everyone, go find one thing in this room that's interesting. Not pretty. Interesting."

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