Page 80 of Pretty Dead Things

“But you have to let me live it my way.”

She scoffs, her eyes flicking to the top of my head. “When you were a baby,” she says softly, “I always said you had the most perfectly shaped head.”

The corner of her mouth twitches, almost a smile. And I laugh. For the first time in forever, it feels like we’re seeing each other.

“Shit,” Kayden says, from somewhere in the garage, followed by a crash. Then, with a pop, the house comes alive—the lights blaze on, the heater groans, the security alarm chimes, and every digital clock blinks 12:00 in unison. Like the whole world has started over fresh.

CHAPTER NINETY-ONEISABELLE WHITMORE

2000

Isabelle Whitmore drives down Main Street toward the library with the windows rolled down, her long, dark hair whipping around her face. She is thinking of her sister, of how she knows that her sister is right. That she needs to break up with her boyfriend, but the thought of it makes her sick.

She knows exactly how he’ll respond, has played it over in her mind for months. He will nod his head. He will not say a word. And it will be done. There won’t be tears and pleading conversations. He has none of his father’s explosive anger, but he does have his stoicism. Once she does this, there is no undoing it. And that scares her because she knows this will hurt him. She has always hated seeing people hurting.

But she can’t stay with him forever just because it’s the nice thing to do. It isn’t fair to him or her. Not when she feels like a kite about to catch the first gust of wind. She senses the rush of the months, tumbling toward graduation, and then college. And then she will be spinning free-fall in the open sky. She almost gasps sometimes when she thinks of it. All her life has been in this little town, the same parties with the same people. But the world is big, mountains and oceans and foods she has never tried and views she has never seen. She wantsto see them all. Wants to experience, wants to taste and smell, wants to make mistakes without being tethered to anyone.

Except, of course, her sister. Not a kite string holding her back. But a wing.

She is lucky to be a twin. That big open world would seem scary if she had to do it alone. But she doesn’t, and that thought calms her as the light turns green.

She changes direction on a split-second decision, turning the car without even using her blinker.

CHAPTER NINETY-TWOINGRID

2026

I move in darkness. Around me hang drying photographs, a series I’m working on of portraits done in mirrors. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the famed street photographer, talked of the fabled “decisive moment,” wandering the streets and waiting for time, light, and subjects to arrange themselves. In this moment, the photographer must have a “simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” He was capturing his fleeting reality.

That’s what I’m trying to do more these days, pay attention to the things that are fleeting.

I time the exposure, then switch off the light on the enlarger, moving the photographic paper into the first bath. As I rock the basin back and forth, fluid sloshing, the image gradually appears. Every time, it feels like magic, even though I know it is science, chemicals reacting with exposed silver halide crystals.

I don’t think often of Izzy’s last moments anymore, of Abel Sherman’s hands around her neck, of how she must have fought, clawed at him, nails tearing, fingers bleeding. I think instead of her spirit, of the photographs that exist in my mind, the fractions of seconds that captured her, the true her. Her long, dark hair tucked behindher ear, the spark in her eyes when she gave someone a present, the sudden tilt of her head and flash of teeth, caught mid-laugh, a blur of motion as if the camera couldn’t keep up.

In the dim, ruddy glow of the safelight, I watch the liquid’s surface ripple gently forward and back. My faint reflection stares back at me. And it is only me. I feel her breath on my neck, feel her nuzzle the sharp point of her chin into my shoulder.Maybe you’re the real Isabelle, she whispers. For so long, when I saw my own reflection, I only saw her. I only thought of the future she lost, that we both lost. I didn’t think about how I could carry her into mine.

With a pair of tongs, I slide the photograph from one bath to the next, then give it a quick rinse in clean water before hanging it to dry, clipping its corners to the wire strung over my workspace. I put away the unused photographic paper in a light-sealed drawer and turn on the light.

I step out into the hallway. Mom’s Miss Lone Star photograph still hangs outside their bedroom. So much of this house is the same as it always was, but we decided to finally clear out the old bedroom, the one Izzy and I shared. Mom, Dad, and I packed her things into storage bins, wrapping each snow globe carefully with butcher paper. There was the cling of pain, of course, like rain on fabric. You could forget it for a moment, until you turned or moved, and caught a whiff of it again.

But there was also joy. I remember Mom sitting on Izzy’s old bed, a silk scarf tied around her head, laughing so hard she had to wipe her eyes. Izzy’s life wasn’t sealed like a shrine anymore. We were touching her things, recalling memories we hadn’t revisited in far too long.

Dad turned our old room into a darkroom for me, a place for me to develop my photographs, but also an excuse to get me around the house more often, now that I’ve moved back into town.

I walk down the stairs past the beginning and end of my sister’s life, and, as I reach the bottom floor, I can’t help but recognize that I’m stepping into my present. I used to think the camera kept mesafely at a distance from life. I was always keeping distance, the miles between Colorado and home, the calculations between what I wanted and what I did, the careful analyzing of pros and cons before I made a decision. But Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment demands that the photographer is acutely present. You must be aware of the feeling, of the significance of the now, and when you press that button, when you choose to act, you only have a fraction of a second to trust your gut.

“Burgers are almost ready,” Mom says. I find her at the kitchen table, sipping sweet tea with Carol Sherman, who’s come into town to visit for the weekend. Several inches of Mom’s hair have grown back, and it frames her head in soft curls.Chemo curls, Melanie told us they are called. Her oncologist declared her to be in remission, after her last scans showed no evidence of disease.

I grab a clean plate from the cabinet and bring it outside to the patio, where Ben is tending the grill. When I hand it to him, he slips a hand around my waist and pulls me in so he can kiss me.

After the storm last year, Joel asked me to come back to Colorado, to let him move back into the house, so we could try to work things out. It was a practical request. But I saw the time, light, and subjects arrange themselves, saw the picture of what I really wanted.

Through the open patio door, I take a picture of Mom and Carol laughing at the table. Photography is a way to save and to savor these fleeting moments of happiness. Life isn’t something that’s meant to be planned, it’s meant to be lived. And I feel, more than ever, that it’s good to be home.

CHAPTER NINETY-THREEMELANIE

The weather is absolutely gorgeous, the way it is in Texas in the spring, that itty-bitty sweet spot between the chill of winter and the unrelenting, sweat sop of summer. Just a finger snap of blue sky and sunshine so warm you just have to tip your face to it, a breeze on your neck and wildflowers like paint strokes. The kind of day it seems God makes just for the sake of showing off.