“You’re unwilling to recast our daughter, but you can swap one wife for another without a problem?”

“We got the wife’s coverage for her remaining scenes with the yurei, but we need Setsuko’s close-ups and reversals. Since you’re the same height and build, it should work if we only see you from behind.”

“Recast Setsuko, and I’ll do it. She’s in heavy makeup. No one will notice.”

“Kyoko, no. This isn’t up to you.”

He had been remarkably tolerant of how I had chosen to raise Setsuko, Wyatt continued. Perhaps too tolerant. But how do you explain to your little girl what happened to the child who came before her? My way might actually be the kindest, he had thought, by gradually introducing her to facts and memories until she was old enough to understand. Especially since her older sister was her duplicate—or vice versa. Nevertheless, he couldn’t let me sabotage the film that might be his finest achievement. Since our second Setsuko was nine, I had to begin letting go and accepting our daughter for who she is.

“That’s pretty hypocritical coming from you,” I say. “My name isn’t Kyoko. It’s Karen. I’ve never been the woman you’ve wanted me to be.”

“Okay, Karen,” Wyatt replies, “that pet name has never bothered you before, but tell me something. What happens now you’ve run out of Setsuko’s memories? There’s nothing left to do.”

“A pet name isn’t usually a common first name from another country,” I say, “but to answer your question, Setsuko clearly needs more training. More recitations, plus fresh restagings of crucial memories we didn’t get quite right before she’s able to come back.”

“She never gets to be a regular kid, is that it—until you decide that she’s ready to be loved?”

“If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

Wyatt turns away from me toward the beach so I can’t see the face he makes, whether it’s one that I have recognized in my daughter, one that I know how to tend to and positively influence.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Give me one shoot, you as the wife and Setsuko as the ghost daughter, and I’ll figure out the rest.”

“We’re all yours,” I say.

Setsuko gloats throughout our morning drive to the studio the next week. She thinks the fact that we’re following the routine of exercising then filming means she has defied me and won.

“On my birthday, I told Daddy I wanted to be in movies, too, and he said he would sign me up for an acting class,” she says.

“I guess that was before we came to a parental decision,” I reply, pulling into the parking lot.

“What decision?” She sounds doubtful, much more docile.

“The decision that after this film is complete, you’re done,” I say. “No more acting.”

I drag my tantruming daughter inside and unload her on the makeup people. Sitting motionless in the company of relative strangers should subdue her anger. I slip into the robe with cherry blossoms and review the sides. The current scene is near the end. The ghost Yumi has become more violent and increasingly corporeal from feeding on the couple’s fear. While the husband is away scheduling an exorcism with a local witch doctor, Yumi attempts to strangle the wife in her sleep. Upon emerging as her deceased likeness, Setsuko is dismayed to see me in costume.