It was all because of Gramps’s camera. Dad had said as much when he gave it to her, telling her it had saved him. But he didn’t say how. She needed to know.
She studied the numbers on the film canister: ISO 400, whatever that meant. Twenty-four. The number of photos you could take. She’d taken five or six photos of Mom and Dad, but now the little red F on the camera told her the film was full. Dad couldn’t help himself—maybe that was why he’d given her a whole box of film.
Anyway, this tiny tube of metal held twenty-four photos, but Simon’s shop was closed. Who would turn the film into photos now? Dad said Monique found only one place in the whole city.
Milly put the canister on her bedside table and grabbed her tablet. She swiped away the news update—something about the drug company Mom used to work for and a government investigation—and fired up Google.
Film . . . photos . . . laboratory . . .
The first search result popped onto her screen, and Milly laughed.
Simon’s Film Lab.
So much for Dad saying the guy was gone. His shop was just online, like every shop was. She touched her way through to the website. Yes, that was him. A smiling man with slicked-back silver hair, a white lab coat, and a red-and-yellow name badge. A handmade font scrawled across his image: Clarity like you’ve never experienced before!
Milly stared at him. Strange-looking guy. Young but old, and he had a twinkle in his eye. That had to be a filter.
A link at the top of the screen pulsed and glowed. Cameras. Milly opened the page and flicked her way past thick black cameras. Others were wooden and boxy. Nothing exciting . . . plus, she already had an old camera. Why would she need another one? What she needed was someone to turn her film into photos.
A second link pulsed and glowed. Gallery. She flicked her way down a page filled with faces. The photos were embarrassing. No smiles, no good angles. Someone even looked like they didn’t want to get caught eating a whole block of chocolate. It was almost as if people didn’t know the camera was there. Weird.
Another link at the top of the page pulsed and glowed in yellow text. Send us your film!
Milly’s finger hovered over it as a chat window popped up with a ping and a text pulsed in bright red.
Someone is typing . . .
Another ping, and a message flashed into the bottom corner of her screen.
Welcome to Simon’s Film Lab! How may I help you today?
A Note from the Author
Dear Friend,
Thank you for investing your time in reading The Camera Never Lies. I hope you enjoyed the story and the message woven through it.
And I hope you had more fun reading it than I had writing it.
No, this isn’t a confession, where you learn that the original idea for The Camera Never Lies was found in the desk of my mentor after he died. The book concept is mine. Honestly. And my mentor is still alive. I think. I should call him.
The challenge I found when writing this book is that it started as the story of a marriage counselor and addressed the question, What would it look like if a man’s secrets were revealed to those around him? But then the story became a story not of a marriage counselor but of a marriage, and that’s where the challenge began. Again, this is not a confession, but more a realization that our honesty (or rejection of it) comes with messy consequences. And those consequences are often felt by others. In Daniel’s case, by his wife and daughter. In Kelly’s case, by her husband and daughter. Poor Milly.
The more I explored the secrets Daniel and Kelly held from each other, the clearer it became that turning your back on something that’s an inalienable truth is more than a rejection of honesty. It’s a choice that comes packed with a punch, and even if you duck the blow, it can hit others.
My stories always come with a theme. With The Baggage Handler, the story was about dealing with emotional baggage. With The Camera Never Lies, the theme is about the price of accepting honesty with others and ourselves.
I’d like to ask you a question. How did you respond when Daniel or Kelly looked to take a shortcut or a step in the wrong direction to preserve a lie or to keep the truth hidden for slightly longer?
Remember your response, because it’s important. That response was your own response to truth. It can be much easier to see it in someone else’s life. I know it is for me, and it may be the case for you as well.
It certainly was for a hotshot marriage counselor with a bestselling book.
So what do you do when you’re faced with both the path of truth and another path? Do you decide to face the truth in your life? Or do you weigh the consequences of your preferred path to see if it’s worth it—the pain of revelation outweighing the peace of truth?
These are age-old questions. The answers might not be easy to hear, but that doesn’t mean the questions aren’t worth asking. If you’d like to explore this further, I have some starter questions on the next page. It isn’t homework—think of it more like flicking through a series of photos and finding a deeper truth within them.
Take care,
Discussion Questions
What power do secrets hold over people, and why do so many people choose to keep their secrets hidden?
How did you respond when Daniel or Kelly looked to take a shortcut or a step in the wrong direction to preserve a lie or keep the truth hidden for slightly longer?
Simon sometimes held on to the envelopes with Daniel or Kelly’s photos for a little too long. What do you think is the significance of that?
Do you have friends or family who are carrying a secret they should perhaps deal with? If so, how can you best support them in dealing with it?
Why do people hide from the truth they try to keep secret?
What do you do when you’re faced with truth and another path? Do you weigh the consequences of your preferred path to see if it’s worth it? Or do you decide to face the truth in life?
What is the one secret you hold that would devastate you the most if a camera mysteriously revealed it to those around you? What is that secret doing to your future, and what is it doing to your present?
If you were given a camera that revealed secrets, would you be tempted to use it to uncover other people’s secrets like Daniel was tempted?
Which person (or people or group) would be the first you’d take photos of? Should you perhaps deal with anything in your answer, even if you’re camera-less?
Reflect on Simon’s statement:
“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.”
Is that true for the people around you? Is it true for you?
Should some secrets never be revealed? Why?
What do you think will happen to Daniel in terms of the consequences of his secrets?
What do you think should happen? Does what you think should happen differ from what you think will happen? If so, why?
Acknowledgments
To God: Thank you for making this possible, in so many ways.
To my family: Nicky, Cameron, Daniella, and Emily, thank you for your patience in hearing about magical cameras and secrets—with a special shout-out to Emily, my little beta reader and finder of typos.
To the team behind me: James L. Rubart, it means a lot when authors you look up to hear your concept for a book and love it as much as you do; Steve Laube, whose wise counsel in short email bursts is greatly appreciated; my parents, thank you for your unwavering enthusiasm for the little wins; and the Fulwood family, my first fans ☺.
To the team at HarperCollins Christian Publishing: Becky Monds (for being the best editorial director ever), Paul Fisher, Allison Carter, Laura Wheeler, Savannah
Summers, Kevin Hyer, and Kristen Ingebretson. Your partnership across the ocean, a dozen time zones, and several cultures means a lot. I appreciate each one of you for the work you do to bring a story from inside my head to the outside world. And to Jean Bloom, for her line editor’s eagle eye and translation skills to assist with my mother tongue of Australian.
To my Debut Authors Group: Jess, Rachel, Melissa, Joy, Tari, Natalie, Abigail, Lauren, and Hannah. It has been a joy to share in the excitement of our first year in publishing. Long may the stories continue!
All characters in this work are fictitious. Resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, although if you see yourself in these pages, maybe someone’s trying to tell you something.
About the Author
David Rawlings is an Australian author, and a sports-mad father of three who loves humor and a clever turn of phrase. Over a twenty-five-year career he has put words on the page to put food on the table, developing from sports journalism and copywriting to corporate communication. Now in fiction, he entices readers to look deeper into life with stories that combine the everyday with a sense of the speculative, addressing the fundamental questions we all face.
Website: www.davidrawlings.com.au
Facebook: David Rawlings – Author
Instagram: davidrawlingsauthor
Twitter: @DavidJRawlings
Acclaim for David Rawlings
“In his intriguing novel, The Camera Never Lies, David Rawlings challenges us to wonder what our photographs would look like if our souls, not our faces, were captured by the lens. This fascinating story will capture your imagination and your heart.”
—Rachel Hauck, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress and The Memory House
“The camera never lies, and neither does this gripping story about unearthing our deepest secrets in the most fantastical of ways. A message relatable to us all, bottled in an adventure we all love to read. Highly recommend!”
—Melissa Ferguson, author of The Dating Charade, on The Camera Never Lies
“A thought-provoking look at the real price that secrets extract—not just from the person keeping them, but from their loved ones too. You’ll close this story and be compelled to examine your own life . . . and also look at those around you and wonder, ‘Who else looks like they have it all together but is drowning on the inside?’”
—Jessica Kate, author of Love and Other Mistakes, on the Camera Never Lies
“The Baggage Handler by David Rawlings is an extraordinary novel that lingered in my heart long after I finished it. Rawlings’s fabulous writing highlighted the unusual premise that had me thinking about my own baggage. I want everyone I know to read this!”
—Colleen Coble, USA TODAY bestselling author of The House at Saltwater Point and the Lavender Tide series
“Throughout the day I found myself itching to get back to this story. You will too. The Baggage Handler is a tale that will resonate deeply with those who have held on too tightly, for too long, to the things that hold them captive. That’s me. That’s you. Pick it up and prepare to have your world turned upside down, then turned right side up.”
—James L. Rubart, bestselling author of The Man He Never Was
Also by David Rawlings
The Baggage Handler
Copyright
The Camera Never Lies
© 2019 David Rawlings
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-7852-3069-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7852-3070-0 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data is available upon request.
Printed in the United States of America
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