I did not know anything about cameras. I knew it was beautiful. I knew it looked like something that had been used, a lot, and taken care of: the silver on the corners worn down to a duller silver, a tiny dent in the metal near the button you press, the leather on the body polished smooth in two places where a person's fingers would go. Somebody had held this camera for years. Somebody had cleaned it before they put it in this box. The glass on the lens was so clear it looked wet.
I lifted it out with both hands. It was heavier than I expected. It was warm from the kitchen.
"Oh my God," said Delphine. "Is that a film camera? Those are so expensive now. People pay like crazy money for those."
I looked up to say something, I don't know what, and I saw my father's face.
He had gone white. Not pale, the way people go when they are tired. White, the color of the kitchen wall, the color of the marzipan under the green. He was standing behind Delphine's chair with the two-liter bottle of ginger ale still in his hand and he was looking at the camera in my hands the way you would look at something that had climbed out of a hole in the floor.
"Dad?" I said.
He set the bottle down on the counter. He set it down so carefully that it made no sound at all.
"Where did that come from," he said. It wasn't a question. His voice was very flat.
"You said it was on the porch," I said.
"Who left it."