BooksBarbecue
Back The Camera Never Lies Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Epigraph
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Epilogue
  49. A Note from the Author
  50. Discussion Questions
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. About the Author
  53. Acclaim for David Rawlings
  54. Also by David Rawlings

The first tear fell onto the quivering page as Daniel read the final words Gramps would ever say to him.

I never allowed you to touch it, but you need it now. I have left it for you and not your mother because I know you need its truth. Please use it wisely; it has freed me from so much and taught me there’s always more to life than what we see. I love you.

Gramps

The gravel died away, and Gramps became silent in Daniel’s life.

More tears came—a normal grief reaction—as he reached for the briefcase. The most special day in my life. Daniel chuckled to himself. He’d heard that phrase every year just before he blew out the candles. On the first lock, 0–1–1. On the other, 7–8–3.

His birthday.

The locks snapped open with a thunk. A puff of nostalgia and Old Spice drifted out as Daniel lifted the lid to find the one thing in Gramps’s life he was never allowed to share.

His old Olympus camera.

Heavy, black and silver—from a time when the camera pointed away from photographers and not back at them while they made a face like a duck.

Daniel lifted it out with reverence; it was a sacred relic. He ran his thumb across the thick knobs and stiff levers, surrounded by tiny etched numbers. A rising sense of the forbidden grabbed him as his finger rested on the trigger where Gramps’s weathered and lined index finger had once sat.

Daniel squinted through the viewfinder, and the tiny room came alive. The fading plastic chairs sparkled like new. The fluorescent lighting was somehow more yellow, more natural. Milly hunched even further over her phone. He brushed a roughness on the bottom of the camera and flipped it over to find an inscription in an elegant cursive script.

No matter what you think you might see, the camera never lies.

Gramps could be melodramatic when he wanted to be.

Film was already in the camera. That was good; he had no idea where he’d buy any.

Something else was in the briefcase—a flash of red. Daniel pulled out a small book with a fading red cover and a word stenciled on the front in worn gold: Photos. He felt another rising sense of the forbidden; he had seen few of Gramps’s photos and never this album.

The book creaked open with a stiff groan. On each page was a single photograph held in place with tiny black triangles—Daniel recognized two of Gramps’s friends from the funeral. The color in the photos was washed out, as if someone had dialed it down when the photos were processed.