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dragged the box into the kitchen and went back into the closet to get another one. As she pulled down a box near the back
wall, she banged her hip against something. She looked down and, when her eyes adjusted, realized that the wall was really
a door, and it was a doorknob that she had hit.
    The beat of her heart staggered. What was beyond the door? Why would TB paint it black? Her hand reached for the knob. Was
the audience behind her yelling, “Don't go in there, you stupid fool!”? And indeed it was like watching a movie, her hand
slowly reaching for the knob, expecting it to be jerked away by some knife-wielding psycho standing framed in the lurid backlight.
    At first the door seemed locked, until Katharine turned the knob harder.
Boy, you're really fearless
. She shoved the door aside. She couldn't see a thing. The feeble light from behind her shadowed a pull chain hanging just
below the door header in front of her face. She jerked it hard and flinched as a red, leering light flooded the room.
It's a little whorehouse. … No
, it was her son's bedroom when he went through a phase of colored lights and folded Indian-print bedspreads nailed over the
windows like blackout curtains.
    A drug-processing operation
?
    No, a photographer's darkroom, narrow and deep, with counters running the length of the space. Cardboard boxes and plastic
jugs lined the shelves below both counters. A sink was surrounded by trays and round containers, and a clothesline was strung
at an angle from one wall to another.
    The room was clean and neat and, therefore, seemed unused. There were no pictures on the corkboard, no negatives pinned like
streamers from the clothesline. There was a very light film of dust on the countertops, undisturbed by fingerprints. TB had
obviously abandoned this place, so Katharine turned off the light, closed the door, and went back into the kitchen, taking
another box with her.
    There was more in the boxes than she could have expected, yet less than she could have wished for. One box held a black case
with padded shoulder straps. Inside was a camera, beautiful even to Katharine's untrained eye. The name on it was Nikon FM2,
and there were lenses and other paraphernalia in a matching case. The other boxes were filled with photographs, negatives,
8 × 10 sheets with rows of small pictures, and a small spiral notebook filled with dates, numbers, and symbols like mathematical
formulas written in Thisby's juvenile hand.
    The real find was a stack of photo albums. The first one began when Thisby was a newborn. It looked like something her mother
had started for her, half baby book, half photo album. A birth announcement was taped to the first page:
    Thisby Flute Bennet
    Wednesday, December 24
    “
There was a star danc'd, and under that she was born.”

    Katharine watched Thisby grow from a pretty baby to a chunky toddler to a waifish young child, performing in ballet recitals
and acting in plays, though Thisby was always in the back with the chorus, not in front with the leads. There were photographs
of the family, mostly of Rob and Thisby clowning around together. One was always next to the other, linked arm in arm, grinning
identical smiles, the right side of their lips slanted up and out. Thisby's parents always appeared together too. They were
a beautiful couple, smiling and confident and proud. Anne Bennet had the look of fine china, fragile yet stronger than might
be expected.
If Thisby could grow into an Anne Bennet, there might be hope
.
    When Thisby was seven or eight, a vague baby appeared — sister “Kewpie,” as Thisby captioned her. The baby was always out
of focus, but she did look like a Kewpie doll, with a topknot of hair tied with a thin ribbon above a round face.
    From then on, the album was strictly Thisby's, and it looked as if she had taken to photography with a vengeance. She took
pictures of everything and everyone, though the baby disappeared quickly from the photoplay. If Rob hadn't talked