Chapter 4: Eleven Years
I picked the phone back up.
"Dana.
I'm not angry at you.
But I need you to think carefully.
Did she say anything else?"
Another pause.
Then: "She said she was going to tell you.
She kept saying she just needed to find the right moment."
"For a week."
"I know."
"While I texted her twice asking for my camera back."
"I know." Dana's voice had gone small.
"I told her she needed to say something.
She said you'd overreact."
I'd overreact.
I let that sit for a moment.
Then I said, "Thank you, Dana," and I ended the call.
I walked to the window and looked across the street.
Priya's car was in the driveway.
Her kitchen light was on.
I could see the blue flicker of a television through the front curtains.
Eleven years.
She'd been at my father's funeral.
She'd sat in the second row and cried, and afterward she'd held my hand in the parking lot and said, *take all the time you need, I'm not going anywhere.* She'd brought food to my house for two weeks.
She'd known, because I'd told her, that the camera was the only thing of his I'd kept.
She'd held it in her hands on my porch while I showed her how to load it.
And she'd dropped it in a tide pool and spent a week deciding I wasn't worth a phone call.
I knocked on her door at seven o'clock that evening.
She opened it in a sweatshirt, a glass of wine in her hand, and her face did something complicated when she saw me — a quick recalibration, a smile assembled just a half-second too late.
"Hey!
I was just about to text you, I found my other bag and I'm going to go through it tonight—"
"You know where the film is," I said.
The smile didn't disappear.
It just stopped moving.
"What?"
"It's in your toiletry bag.
You put it there in Portugal.
You told Dana."
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Took a small step back.
"I don't know why Dana would—"
"Priya." My voice was steady.
I'd had three days to get it steady.
"I'm not here to argue about what you told Dana.
I'm here because that film has photographs of my father on it, and I need it back tonight."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Something moved behind her eyes — not guilt exactly, more like the calculation of someone deciding how much ground to give up.
"Come in," she said finally.
I stepped inside.
She set her wine glass on the counter and disappeared down the hallway.
I stood in her kitchen and didn't move.
She came back two minutes later holding a small black film canister.
She held it out.
I took it without saying anything.
"I was going to tell you," she said.
"I just — it was an accident, and I panicked, and then every day it got harder to bring up."
"You laughed," I said.
"On my porch.
When I told you I needed the film back that night.
You laughed and said it's a camera, not a kidney."
Her jaw shifted.
"I was nervous."
"You were managing me." I looked down at the canister in my hand.
"You've been managing me since Sunday."
"That's not fair—"
"The camera is destroyed." I looked up.
"Roy at the repair shop says the shutter is corroded through.
Salt water.
He can't fix it."
She said nothing.
"My father's camera," I said.
"The one I told you was the only thing of his I kept.
The one you said you'd guard with your life."
The word *sorry* started to form on her face.
I could see it coming — the soft eyes, the tilted head, the version of an apology designed to make the other person feel unkind for staying angry.
May you like
I didn't wait for it.
"I'll let you know what happens with the film," I said, and I walked out.
