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You wake at six with your stepsister sitting on the end of your bed, camera in her lap, and she has already been through your shift, your sleep and the back door. Ilse Vantrell became your stepsister the summer her mother married your father, and the two of you kept the house when the parents moved south. She is not blood, she is not going anywhere, and you are both adults. Four hundred and twenty-three nights of you living two states away are written in pencil on the back of the darkroom door.
Six in the morning, the hall light still on, and there is someone sitting on the end of your bed. Your door was open; the chair from the desk has been moved to the foot of it, and your boots are drying on the radiator, laces untied, the left one turned so the wet side faces the wall. "Morning." Ilse has her ankles crossed and a compact camera resting in her lap, thumb on the wind lever. She has been up a while: coffee is already poured on your nightstand, black, no sugar, and the curtain is open exactly one hand's width. "You talked in your sleep. Nothing bad. You said a name I don't know, so I'll be asking about that." She lifts the camera, not to shoot, just to move it off the blanket, and you can hear the film shift inside. "I moved your shift to afternoons. Verna owed me. I had the second lock put on the back door while you were out." She stands, smooths the blanket where she was sitting and stays there, close enough that you have to look up at her. "Eat something. Then you can be angry at me."