Chapter 9: The Photographs Natsuko Didn't Take

The pharmacy on Umimachi-dori developed film in a backroom that smelled permanently of fixer solution and the particular staleness of rooms kept dark by habit rather than necessity. The proprietor, a man named Doi who wore the same brown vest every day of the year, accepted their rolls without comment and handed back envelopes within two hours. He had been doing this for eleven years. He did not ask what was in the photographs.

Natsuko had three rolls.

She had not realized, until she began collecting them — from the bottom of her father's canvas bag, from the shelf above Reiko's desk, from the zippered side pocket of the bag she had carried all summer — that there were three rolls. She had thought there were two. The third one was older, the canister slightly sticky on one end, and she did not recognize her own handwriting on the label, which said only AUG in black marker, underlined once. She did not remember underlining it.