The Photographer's Return novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Fireproof Box

Sylvie digs out her cameras and the copyright papers for her old photos, leaves a note and flies to Reno, where her husband texts that they'll vote on it later.

I put the iPad back on the counter exactly where Milo had left it.

Screen up. Still open. Still logged in.

Then I started dinner.

Warner came down at seven and kissed the side of my head like nothing in the world was wrong.

For him, nothing was.

I made the salmon he liked. Milo pushed his plate away after one bite.

"It smells weird," he said.

Warner grinned at him across the table.

Mackenzie filmed her own plate of greens for her stories and didn't eat those either.

I didn't say a word about the suite.

I didn't say a word on Wednesday, either.

I drove Milo to surf camp and watched him run to my sister at the curb without looking back.

I drove home and climbed the stairs to the room at the end of the hall.

It used to be my darkroom.

Warner had turned it into storage the year Milo was born. Christmas boxes. A broken treadmill. His old golf bag.

I moved all of it into the hallway, one box at a time.

The closet still smelled faintly of fixer.

On the top shelf, behind a stack of baby blankets, was my camera bag.

Inside, my old Hasselblad sat exactly where I'd packed it ten years ago, wrapped in a dish towel from my mother's kitchen.

I lifted it out with both hands.

Under the bag was a gray fireproof box with a combination lock.

My mentor had made me buy it the week the magazine cover came out.

"Register everything," he'd said, standing behind the counter of his shop in Tahoe City. "Every roll. Rich men love a free picture."

I'd laughed at him.

I'd done it anyway, because he'd scared me a little.

I turned the dial. Zero, six, one, five. The date of the dawn I'd shot Emerald Bay.

It still opened.

Inside was a thick envelope from the U.S. Copyright Office.

A certificate of registration, with a list of every image in my archive.

Claimant: Sylvie Harrow.

Under it, a contact sheet.

Number fourteen was a kayak on green water, circled in red grease pencil.

I sat on the floor of the closet and opened my laptop on my knees.

The Whitmer Lake & Coast website loaded in a second.

Every listing banner was mine.

Sand Harbor in a storm. The pier at Tahoe City under snow. A dock in Carnelian Bay with the fog coming off it.

Photo: Warner Whitmer.

Then, because I couldn't stop, I opened my sister's account.

Three hundred and ten thousand followers.

The top post was Mackenzie on a longboard at Pacifica, mid-turn, her hair lit up gold.

I'd taken that one in April, standing in the cold surf in Warner's waders because she'd begged.

The caption said: "Self-timer and a prayer #selfshot."

The next one was mine too. And the next.

Two years of mornings at the beach with my camera, because Kenzie needed content and I was the only one awake.

Not one of them had my name on it.

Under the Pacifica photo was a sponsor tag for a swimwear brand.

I closed the laptop.

I put the certificate back in the box and the box in my suitcase, under my sweaters.

Then the Hasselblad, my two old lenses, my light meter and twelve rolls of film that had expired in the freezer.

When I came out of the darkroom, Milo was sitting on the top stair.

He'd been sent home early with a sunburn.

He looked at the camera bag over my shoulder.

Then he looked at me.

I waited for the face. The fake spit. The laugh.

He didn't do anything.

He just watched me walk past him down the stairs, his eyes exactly the color of mine.

Thursday, Warner booked a car for the airport on Saturday.

Three passengers.

Mackenzie did a live stream from the guest suite, packing bikinis while four thousand people watched.

"My sister's doing her own little thing this year," she told them, and rolled her eyes. "Lake vibes. Very her."

I heard it through the wall.

I finished packing my own suitcase.

At five on Friday morning the house was dark and quiet.

My ring was still on the dresser, beside the sunscreen, where nobody had touched it.

I went into Milo's room.

He was asleep sideways across the bed, one foot out from under the blanket, his sunburned nose peeling.

I tucked the foot back in.

I didn't kiss him. He'd have woken and pulled away, and I couldn't stand to see it.

Downstairs I tore a page from the grocery pad.

I wrote it in pen so I couldn't erase it.

"Have a good trip. I'm not coming back to this."

I didn't sign it.

They'd know whose handwriting it was. It was on every lunch bag in that house.

I propped it against the fruit bowl and turned my phone off.

The rideshare driver put my suitcase in the trunk and asked if I was going somewhere fun.

"Home," I said, and it surprised both of us.

The flight to Reno took an hour.

I watched the Sierra come up under the wing, granite and snowmelt and dark green pine.

At the gate in Reno I finally turned my phone back on.

It buzzed for almost a full minute.

Forty-one missed calls.

Warner. Mackenzie. Warner. My mother in Sacramento. Warner. Warner. Mackenzie.

Not one from the number I'd programmed into Milo's watch.

Under the calls was a single text from my husband.

"Don't be dramatic. We'll vote on it when we're back."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend