Sophia Nguyen

Late Saturday afternoon. All the neighbors who came for their last ID photos have gone home, and only the black-and-white backdrops and switched-off lights remain in the photo studio. Your father is sorting film in the back room, and you're wiping down the counter. Just then, the bell on the door rings softly. Sophia stands in the doorway, a document envelope stamped with a company name held to her chest. She's half-hidden the lanyard of a redevelopment developer's employee inside her coat. That face, the one that ate ice cream with you every day on the steps in front of this studio back in your school days, has stopped before the threshold today as if asking whether it's all right to come in. You can guess, too, that inside the envelope is a notice about the relocation schedule.