I took my wallet out of my bag. “I don’t know how to load it.”

“I can show you,” she said, taking my credit card. “Who’s your grandmother? Would I know her?”

“Maybe. Her name is Joan West.”

“I’ll look her up.” She handed me my receipt. “We can develop the film when you’re ready.”

—

I met Steph for lunch on Monday. I hadn’t seen her since Friday, and when I spotted her in the garden center talking to a customer by the potted plants, time seemed to slow down and speed up all at once. It felt like a year had passed since we were together, and yet I could still feel her at my fingertips.

I hovered in the background until she saw me. The way her smile lit up her eyes made me feel invincible.

When she was finished with the customer, I went over to her. “Hi,” I said. I wanted to kiss her right there, but I was afraid her coworkers might notice.

“Hi.” She reached out and touched my arm with the tip of her fingers. “I’m almost done.”

She let me follow her to the stockroom where she put away the tools she had been using. It was dim in there, lit by a couple of bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and the shelves and walls were crowded with garden equipment, piles of pots, sacks of fertilizer. We kissed in the corner behind a piece of wooden trellis, my hands sliding beneath her tee, her hands slipping beneath the waistband of my shorts. I would have let her touch me right there, I wouldn’t have cared if anyone walked in, but she stopped, breathing heavily, and said, “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

She pressed her forehead to mine and laughed. “I work here. That’s why.”

We went to In-N-Out and ordered burgers and fries, sitting in the cab of her truck overlooking the marshland, in full view of the bright afternoon. We talked about Joan and the next Madchen gig, which Roxy had booked at a bar in San Francisco in September. Steph was going to do it. I would be gone by then, but neither of us brought that up.

—

Monday night at the rehab center, I brought out the Rolleiflex. “There’s film in it,” I said, putting the camera on the bed next to my grandmother. “I went to this camera store in San Anselmo and they helped me load it.”

Joan touched the camera with her left hand, her fingers moving over the case as if to convince herself it was there. “This is so thoughtful of you,” she said.

Dad looked surprised. “I haven’t seen that camera in years.”

Joan lifted it up and set it on her stomach, but her right hand fumbled with the lens cap. “Can you help me?”