The Camera Never Lies

by David Rawlings

  He brought them back to the counter, where Kelly waited with an outstretched hand.

  Simon raised a finger and reached under the counter for an envelope before straightening the photos in it. Then he pulled a large roll of stickers from under the counter and removed one to seal the envelope. He held it out, and Kelly took it with a trembling hand. She turned to leave, but Simon had not yet let go.

  “Are you ready to see these, Kelly?”

  Forty

  Daniel leaned against the window of the laundromat to stop the world from spinning. His directionless walk had taken him in meandering but ever-tightening circles around Simon’s Film Lab, and he arrived back with one minute of his long hour left to burn. In that moment, the strained faces of couples slinking through his office door for counseling made sense. Facing the truth wasn’t an academic exercise or a problem that just needed a solution. And an hour could feel like ten.

  The tiny bell jingled, and Daniel made his way to the counter through a thickening cloud of chemicals. The smell of something developing. “I need to know. Who are you?”

  Simon rose on the balls of his feet, and a light laugh came from his lips as he tapped his name tag. “I thought we’d been introduced.”

  “Very funny.”

  “It’s my job to step in—to shine the light on truth, especially for those people who can’t—or won’t—face it. To encourage people to accept that their secrets are doing them harm and can destroy those around them if they don’t face up to them. In a way, I’m a counselor, just like you.”

  To Daniel’s left was the slightest movement, a shimmering on the surface of one framed photo. He stared at it as the color drained from a young man’s face as he focused on a computer screen. One minute the photo was in full vibrancy; the next minute it was gray. Like the photos in Gramps’s album.

  Simon clapped his hands like a child on Christmas morning. “He’s done it.” The photo dissolved, leaving the frame empty, as Simon turned to face Daniel. “These other people still think they can outlast the symptoms of their secrets.”

  Daniel looked down the wall of frames. So many faces. At its end, No Secrets still sat in its thick pine frame. Still without his name.

  “How did you get these photos?”

  “The same way the camera does. Daniel, the truth will win out. It always does. Even for those people who think they can keep their secrets buried, they know they’re there, and they suffer because of that knowledge. For some it’s an extra burden; they carry it as baggage. Others pretend they’re happy with the life they now lead, but deep down they’re not. So while they think they’ve won, they’re the ones who later in life sit back and realize just how much they’ve lost.”

  Daniel’s glance back at Simon crashed into his question. “Is that who you will be, Daniel?”

  Daniel dropped his head. “What do I do?”

  Simon stood tall. “You need to confess your truth, come clean with those around you, and work hard to win back their trust.”

  “I can’t stop it, can I?”

  “Now that you’ve seen the consequences, why would you want to?”

  “My career will be over—so will my marriage. There’s no way Kelly will accept that the photo with Anna at the work dinner isn’t real.”

  Simon leaned across the counter with a conspiratorial whisper. “You’d be surprised. And isn’t the old saying ‘The truth shall set you free’? Maybe you can use your experience of coming clean to help others.”

  Daniel sat back on his heels. Maybe he could. A tiny spark flickered into life deep within him. The spark of something new. Productive. Meaningful.

  Simon’s unblinking gaze bored into him. “If you’re wavering, the price of not coming clean is something I can show you.”

  Daniel steeled himself. “I’m ready.”

  Simon rose on the balls of his feet. “The evidence is in your photos, but I’m afraid they aren’t here.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve already been picked up.”

  Daniel clutched at the counter as the room started to spin. Who knew about Simon except—

  Oh no.

  Forty-One

  The polished gravel of Daniel’s driveway scattered in every direction as he skidded toward his house. He sprinted up the steps and placed a hand on the front door as he analyzed his options.

  Apology, seeking mercy.

  Confrontation, seeking justification.

  Pleading, seeking assurance.

  The door swung open to a quiet home. Daniel expected to face either an angry Kelly—hands on hips, ready to deliver an angry salvo—or a distraught Kelly propped up by the kitchen counter.

  He saw neither.

  Kelly lay on the sofa in silence, her cheeks wet with tears, the photo envelope discarded on the coffee table. The photographs trembled in her hand.

  Daniel selected pleading as he rushed to the end of the sofa. “I can explain.”

  Kelly bolted upright. “Where have you been? I had to face an angry principal on my own!”

  The appointment had slipped his mind completely. “I’m so sorry, Kel. I’ve been dealing with a few things—”

  Kelly’s face flushed beneath the tears, her anger pulsing through her. “Dealing with a few things? Your daughter has been saying at school that she needs to do something to get our attention, and they might kick her out of St. Arcadia’s. I’ve managed to talk to her, but she won’t get help until we get help. And you won’t get help because you’re protecting your precious career.”

  Daniel absorbed the body blows. Justification gave way to acceptance of something self-inflicted. And in that moment he knew what he had to do.

  More tears flushed away her seething anger. “And if we don’t, this is our future!” She thrust the photographs out to him.

  With a nervous deep breath, Daniel took them, expecting the worst, the tiniest part of him hoping for the best.

  He got the worst.

  The first photo showed an unfamiliar reception area for a business. A group photo on the wall hung next to a different Crossroads Counseling logo than the one he’d taken great pride in signing off from the designer. The photo was a snapshot of only three people, not the proud group that had celebrated on the deck of Daniel’s cliff-top home.

  Another photo. Daniel sat hunched in Gramps’s burgundy recliner in a tiny flat, the claustrophobic walls within touching distance of his chair.

  Another photo. Kelly sat at an unfamiliar kitchen table set for dinner. For one. Glaring at the ceiling, the sheen of tears on her cheeks.

  Daniel flicked to the next image. Kelly read a sheet of paper at this small kitchen table. The purple bank logo bled through the paper.

  Daniel flipped through the photographs of his future. Photo after photo—downcast glances, distant eyes, lips set against an unhappy present. He and Kelly miserable. And each alone.

  Alone.

  It dawned on him. In all these photographs, it wasn’t just that they were without each other; they were without someone else.

  Milly.

  Daniel slumped against the sofa under the weight of unrealized grief at a loss he had not even experienced. Yet.

  Kelly sat up, the back of her hand wiping away tears. “This is our future if we don’t address our problems. We need to deal with them, because if this is our future, then I’ve already left and Milly is gone. Forget your career or the dream house. If we don’t do something, it will cost us our daughter.”

  Daniel reeled at the sense of impending discovery, panicked at having the edges of his buried secrets greeted by the light.

  Kelly nodded to the photos in Daniel’s trembling hand. “I’m happy to talk about what I need to do, like close the bank account, but I need to know you’re happy to keep no secrets as well. And without it turning into a counseling session. Every time I’ve tried to talk to my husband, I get diagnosed. You try to fix me with your professional hat on. I know why you do it—you like to fix things, and you’re so good
at it.”

  Daniel felt his soul puddle into his shoes. His strength at work was a blind spot at home. His advice to Joe and Joanne Average sitting on his couch was simple, but he never followed it. His advice echoed back to him, annoying him with not just its simplicity but the fact that he knew he’d offered it a thousand times without listening to it himself. You need to bring some things out into the open. You each hold a part of the solution.

  Kelly was on a roll—a cork had popped on emotions long bottled up. “I didn’t believe you when you said there was no one else.”

  “I’d run out of ways to convince you, but that’s not—”

  “I spoke to Anna, and she has reassured me that there isn’t.”

  The advice pecked away at him again. You need to bring some things out into the open.

  “I didn’t do anything, but it’s a little more layered than that, Kel. The group photo on our deck showed me and Anna holding hands.”

  Pure fear burned in Kelly’s stare. Daniel had seen that look in a woman’s eyes countless times when her partner had just announced he had something to say. “But Anna told me—”

  “Nothing happened, but the camera showed my heart. I’ve been relying on her in the way I should have been relying on you.”

  Silence. A gentle breeze wafted in from the deck. The fear in Kelly’s eyes subsided.

  “So I’m sorry. I was angry you didn’t believe I’d done nothing wrong, but Simon was clear that I wasn’t being honest with you in how I viewed Anna.” Again, advice he’d doled out for everyone else to follow.

  “But if you aren’t seeing someone else, why have you been coming home so late?”

  “I need to come clean with you about the next book.”

  Kelly frowned in confusion. “What’s wrong with the book?”

  “I’m nearly a year behind. It’s not happening.”

  Kelly sat back, stunned. “Not happening? You said you were working on it.”

  “I’ve been trying to make it happen, to come up with something, but it just wasn’t coming.”

  Kelly’s frown graduated into a scowl. “So when you told me to just wait a few more months—”

  “I was genuine in that.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell me? I stayed at my job because I thought the book wasn’t far away. Was it just that you were too proud to tell me that the bestselling author couldn’t write another book?”

  Daniel stared at his feet. He’d kept this secret close for years, convincing himself it would never come out. But now it was about to be brought into the light, halving its power but doubling its risk. “That’s what I need to be honest with you about.”

  The breeze picked up as it drifted through the doors and ruffled Kelly’s hair. She leaned back into the couch as partners often did in his counseling sessions. Putting distance between them and whatever was about to be revealed.

  Daniel took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and lifted a lid he’d thought was nailed down forever. “The original version of No Secrets wasn’t mine. It was Howard’s.”

  Kelly blinked hard as her mouth dropped open.

  “I found it in his desk when I was cleaning it out after the funeral. I had a big problem—the bank was going to shut down the practice—and I found what I thought was a solution. I told myself it would be okay because I edited most of it. But the lie grew larger every time someone asked me about my inspiration for the book.” His words tumbled out like boiling white-water, spilling over one another in a rush to be heard.

  Kelly’s voice was thin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Shame, pride, the fact I thought I could fix my problems myself. But it’s been impossible to come up with an idea for the second book because I didn’t come up with the idea for the first.”

  Kelly flushed beet red. Then she hurried to the kitchen, and with the tap gushing, she filled, then overfilled, a water glass.

  “Kelly?”

  Kelly drained the glass, and then she filled and overfilled it once more before slamming the tap off. The glass trembled in her hands. “So you’re saying that even after working longer than I was supposed to at a job that was destroying me, we’ll lose the house?”

  Daniel stood, his hands spread wide, his gaze down. A beaten man, but one whose beating left bruises on her as well. “I don’t know.”

  Another gust of wind plucked at their curtains. Kelly’s eyes flicked around the room but landed nowhere near Daniel. The loss of respect he’d expected had started its erosion.

  Daniel glanced at the photos in his hand. “I didn’t want to own up to this with you. More to the point, I didn’t want to own up to it with myself. Something in me didn’t want you to see me for what I’d done.”

  “But you’ve done it, and now I have to pay for it too.”

  “Fair enough. But it’s bigger than that. If that fact about No Secrets gets out, I’ll be destroyed professionally. If that ever came out in a counseling session in someone else’s practice—”

  Kelly gestured to the photos. “So what do we do? This is our future if we don’t do something about it.”

  “It’s also more than just the two of us. Milly isn’t in any of these photos.”

  “I know.” Her tears welled again.

  “As much as we have to do this for each other, we have to do it for her. Gramps’s camera gave us a chance to do something now, by giving us a glimpse of the future if we don’t.”

  “But you hurled it from the deck. And you threw any benefit to us away with it.”

  There was no way Daniel could explain his next statement. “The camera is back. I don’t know how, but it’s back. And it’s intact.” He studied her expression—he would have to bring out the camera to prove it.

  Instead, a light laugh escaped from Kelly. “I’m not really surprised. Simon said the photos were magical.”

  Daniel’s cogs whirred at this unexpected response. “So I can’t get rid of the camera, but I need to get rid of the secrets. And that means we could lose the house.”

  Kelly brushed away the first of what he knew would be many tears yet to come. Then she gave him a slow nod, the gradual acceptance of the inevitable.

  “You were right, Kelly, and the solution needs to start with all three of us seeing someone. That way Milly isn’t wondering if we’re working through our problems. She’ll be a part of the conversation.”

  “But what if the story about Howard’s book gets out?”

  Daniel bowed his head. “I’ll deal with it then.”

  Wind billowed their curtains, and Kelly moved to shut the doors to the deck. Her eyes widened as her hand covered her mouth. A single screamed word forced its way out between her fingers.

  “Milly!” She threw open the doors.

  Through the window, Daniel could see Milly, arms out, her jazz shoes wobbling on the railing.

  And she was crying.

  Forty-Two

  Daniel rushed through the open doors, his princess half an inch from losing her footing, wobbling in the buffeting wind, about to head toward the path Gramps’s camera followed as it plummeted to the rocks two hundred feet below.

  Kelly’s already thin voice strained into the wind. “Milly, please get down.”

  “I don’t want to be that kid with two homes who has to work out which parent I’m with each Saturday.”

  Daniel took a cautious step forward, his hands outstretched. “Step down, and then we’ll talk.”

  Milly’s arms waved as another gust tipped her balance. “I don’t want to talk like you want to talk, when you try to fix me instead of listening.” Her words sliced deep into Daniel’s heart.

  “Okay. Then let’s trade questions, but first you have to get down from there.” He took another step toward her.

  Milly’s arms windmilled, a mixture of fear and determination washing across her face. But she righted herself. “If I can ask the first question.”

  Daniel eased forward another step, the wind swirling around him. “I want you to know
Mom and I have agreed to talk to someone together, and we’d like you to come with us. You can ask all the questions you want.”

  Kelly stepped forward. “But we need you to come down.”

  Another gust of wind battered her, and a foot slipped over the railing. Milly screamed as she bent, thrusting out two hands as Daniel and Kelly leaped forward, each taking one. A split second after her jazz shoes hit the deck, she buried her face between them.

  Daniel breathed again as he clutched his daughter.

  Milly pulled away and leaned against the railing, her chest heaving, her brows knitting again. “I want the first question.”

  Daniel started to fold his arms before thinking better of it. He left them hanging at his sides. “Okay, shoot.”

  “Did you just come out here because I looked like I was going to jump?”

  Kelly rushed to wrap her in an embrace. “Of course, sweetie. I didn’t want you to fall.”

  Daniel studied his only child, the father and counselor within him jostling for position. Her question was deeper than that. “No, we needed to tell you we’re going to talk to someone. You standing on the railing just made it happen faster.”

  Milly nodded, and the first smile in months threatened to creep across her face.

  Daniel thrust his hands into his pockets. “My turn. What would you have done if we hadn’t come out?”

  Kelly squatted in front of Milly, hands on her shoulders, as if giving her space to answer without letting go. “I don’t know, but the only time you two talk about anything is when it’s about me, so I had to do something.”

  “But what if it got so windy—”

  Milly shushed him with a finger. “My turn. What made you and Mom decide to talk to someone?”

  Kelly turned to Daniel as if expectantly waiting for his answer. This was going to sound crazy, but he had to say it. “Gramps’s camera. It showed me truth about my life, and that I haven’t been following my own advice. I tell everyone else to keep no secrets, but I haven’t done that with you. Or with Mom. I need to say I’m sorry—to both of you.”