The one-hour photo smelled of vinegar and metal, the scent clinging to the back of my throat like it might stay there forever. My hands sweated inside the sleeves of my windbreaker as I slid the yellow Kodak envelope across the counter.
The clerk, a man with nicotine-stained fingers, tore the seal with his teeth, holding the flap open like it was a wound. He flipped through the stack without looking at me, his mouth tight.
“Most of these didn’t turn out,” he said. His voice was flat but not unkind. He set the photos on the counter between us.
The first few were smears of light, a sunburst where my father’s head should be, a ghostly blur where my aunt had been leaning against the casket. The disposable camera had been in my backpack all summer, tossed between sunscreen bottles and paperback books, rattling on the floor of my closet. I had meant to use it for the beach, but then August came, and my mother was in the hospital, and the beach felt wrong.
The clerk turned the stack and kept going. In one, the funeral director’s hand reached into the frame holding a white lily, but his arm was a streak, his fingers more shadow than flesh. In another, the church ceiling bent at an impossible angle, beams doubling over themselves, the chandelier split into four watery moons.
I remembered lifting the camera halfway through the service, my palm shaking against the thin plastic body, the click of the shutter like an insect snapping its wings. I had wanted to catch my mother’s face one last time, even though it was already gone.
And then I saw it.
The clerk paused before sliding the photo toward me. The colors were rich, the light sharp. My mother was standing in what looked like a motel room, sunlight spilling in through a half-closed curtain. She was naked, her hair tangled, one hand holding a cigarette, the other covering only part of her chest. She was laughing at something outside the frame, her head tilted back, mouth open, teeth white against the shadow of her throat.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The bedsheet behind her was rumpled in a way that made my stomach turn. There was a man’s shirt draped over the chair in the corner, sleeves hanging toward the carpet.
I gripped the edge of the counter until the laminate pressed crescents into my skin. My first thought was that it had to be from an old roll, some image taken years ago that somehow bled onto this film. But this was the same camera I’d bought with babysitting money that June, the one I’d loaded on the day she fainted in the driveway.
The clerk cleared his throat. “Sometimes these old cameras, they catch light weird. Burn in an old image from another roll, maybe.”
I nodded like that made sense, but I could smell the motel room in my head. Cigarette smoke soaked into the curtains. The sour tang of stale beer. The faint perfume she wore on days she said she was going to the store but came back hours later with nothing in her hands.
I paid in cash, folding the receipt until it was small enough to disappear in my fist. Outside, the parking lot baked under the late afternoon sun, heat rising off the asphalt in shimmers. My car door groaned when I pulled it open. I sat with the envelope in my lap, the air heavy with the smell of hot plastic and gasoline.
I pulled the photo out again. Her body was softer than I remembered, the curve of her stomach, the faint tan lines. She looked free in a way she never had at home. I thought about how she used to stand at the sink, elbows locked, washing the same plate three times over while the radio played low. How she’d sometimes hum under her breath, but never smile like she did in that picture.
When I got home, my father was at the kitchen table, the newspaper folded beside his coffee. The light through the blinds left pale stripes across his face. He looked up when I came in, his eyes tired but not unfriendly.
I slipped the photo back into the envelope, feeling its sharp edge against my palm. I stood there longer than I should have, my voice caught in my throat.
“Did Mom ever… go anywhere by herself?” I asked. My tone was casual, but my fingers clenched the envelope so tight the paper bowed.
He lowered his eyes to the cup in front of him, turning it by the handle. “She liked to drive sometimes,” he said. “Said it helped her think.” His voice was even, but I saw a muscle jump in his jaw.
I nodded like I’d expected that. Poured myself a glass of water, the faucet hissing in the silence between us.
He didn’t look up again.
The envelope burned in my hand, and I wondered how long a single photograph could live in the dark before it began to rot.