Chapter 1

The air inside the photo booth was thick, heavy with the scent of aged velvet and that distinct, metallic tang of developing chemicals, though it was just a mechanical box, not a darkroom. It smelled like secrets. It smelled like nostalgia wrapped in a stale, sugary cotton candy sweetness that had seeped into the fibers of the curtains over decades of use. I stepped into the cramped enclosure, the red vinyl floor creaking slightly under my heels, and the heavy curtain fell shut behind me, severing the noisy, flashing chaos of the carnival from our private world. The world outside was a blur of neon lights and shrieking children, a cacophony of calliope music and spinning wheels, but in here, the air was still, suspended in a golden, hazy quiet. I watched him through the small, square mirror set into the front of the machine. He was sitting on the worn stool, his posture rigid, the way he always was when he was waiting for me. He wore his usual suit, the charcoal grey that I knew he’d had tailored in the nineties, the fabric slightly shiny at the elbows from years of wear. It fit him still, broad across