Once A Gambler

Question: Is it always fundamental to know one's destination? Or, can not knowing be the path to truly knowing?

(A little-known Confucius-ism)

Hollywood, California March 2009

The photograph of Ellie and her sister swam just beneath the surface of the chemical bath, appearing slowly as if rising through a bank of fog. Like a puzzle it evolved: her own dark hair, their clutched hands, her sister Reese's head thrown back in laughter—until finally the two of them appeared just as Ellie remembered they'd been that day before everything had changed.

That day, she remembered, was a Friday. She had worked for thirty minutes setting up that shot and kept getting it wrong. Either she would miss getting seated altogether before the autoshutter went off, or Reese would make a silly face and they would dissolve into laughter again. There was a decent posed shot—all te ... read full excerpt from Once a Gambler ebook