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
“Actually, how is Daniel? He missed our regular at-risk teens counseling session yesterday. I hope he’s okay.”
Daniel never missed an appointment. Time slowed to molasses as she booked an appointment with her daughter’s school to intervene. To save her life. A failed mother, that’s what she felt like, and she was sick of feeling it.
She needed to text Daniel with the time for the principal meeting. No, she’d talk to him about it. He could rearrange his schedule. Their daughter was suffering and acting out. Staying together for Milly’s sake wasn’t working. It was making her worse, and while Daniel could pretend to the outside world that everything was fine, maybe it would take something like this to get him to see someone. Now.
And if he didn’t want to, there was only one thing left to do.
Thirty-Three
Daniel’s reflection stared back at him with a tired resignation. He should be anywhere but here. His first day off in three years, and a nagging thought had chipped away at him all night. And it had won.
Daniel leaned on the glass door, and the tiny bell jingled his arrival. The film processor whirred and clunked in the back of the lab as the waft of chemicals drifted over the counter and grabbed him in an acrid grip.
He noticed two new cameras on the shelf, each from a time before technology, each with a fluttering price tag. He checked his watch. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t in a hurry to be somewhere else, but this urgency was greater. Far greater.
The eerie familiarity of one colorful photo in a mahogany frame drew him across the film lab in a rush. Was that Kelly’s suitcase? He stared hard. The tiles in his own foyer were unmistakable. The first bubble of anger bobbled its way to the surface. He hadn’t given Simon permission to put his family on display.
Daniel shuffled along the frames, crouching and then standing on tiptoes, checking each for signs of a violation of his privacy. None of the photos were his. He reached a large pine frame just behind the counter and skidded to a halt. The frame was no longer empty.
The tiny bell jingled as Simon entered, steam rising from the Chinese takeout container swinging from his fingers.
Daniel’s pulse thudded in his ears as he thrust a quivering finger at the frame. “What do you call this?”
Simon placed his lunch on the counter. “The honest truth.”
Daniel breathed ragged and hard, seething anger sizzling as he rushed at Simon, grinding a finger hard into his chest. “You don’t have my permission to put a photo of my book up on display.”
“Haven’t you built a business on the back of telling people to come clean with each other and hold no secrets?”