Chapters (54)
- Cover
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Epilogue
- A Note from the Author
- Discussion Questions
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Acclaim for David Rawlings
- Also by David Rawlings
“I’m willing to talk about finding someone else.”
“Why is this such a problem for you? Isn’t counseling confidential?”
“Our industry is just like any other. Word would get out. I just know it. The best answer for me would be to see Anna, or even Peter. To keep it in-house. No one will want to see a marriage counselor whose own marriage is falling apart.”
Kelly was torn. He had responded to her ultimatum, albeit with conditions. And what he was saying made sense. “We need to do it for Milly. What we’re doing—or pretending to have—is hurting her.”
Their connection sparked back into weak life, fanned by the joint love of their daughter.
Kelly tried one last time. “So what was that with the camera?”
Daniel stopped, drawing shades over his response. “I’m sorry. I just got . . . angry.”
“Why do I get the feeling everything you say is crafted before I hear it?”
“I wish I hadn’t done it.” But something in his eyes disagreed with that sentiment. He brushed past her. “I have to get out of here for a while.”
What was going on inside his head that he refused to talk about? There could be only one answer. Whatever was in his photos was so damning that he had to get rid of the camera. There was a way to find out—Simon. She would just have to convince him. Beg him, if necessary.
Thirty-Five
The whipping tall grass left a vicious sting on Daniel’s calves. The white-and-yellow flowers that lined the walking path bent back and forth, their heads struggling against the gale, their faces bent away. Two hundred feet below, waves meandered to the shoreline in a random, messy wash. Pounding surf, eroding rock grain by grain, out of sync but powerful alone. And washing away the last gift Gramps gave him.
Waves of remorse pounded Daniel. Gramps had entrusted him with the one thing in his life that had apparently saved him from himself, and he had destroyed it. Why would Gramps do this to him? He would have to know Daniel would get rid of it. Who wouldn’t when faced with the prospect of having their deepest secrets revealed for everyone to see? He threw back his head, the wind sweeping away his screamed apology. “I’m sorry, okay?”
The dirty gray of the clouds smudged the blue from the sky. He had no doubt that, through the camera, those clouds would look white, bursting with light. Was this the lesson Gramps mentioned in his letter? That the world was a different place when you looked through a lens of honesty? When you saw things how they really were? The gift of Gramps’s camera wasn’t pulling back the rug under which Daniel had swept what he believed was best avoided. The gift was to see the world as it truly was, and he had hurled that gift into the sunset.