Free The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond Page A

fog and uninhabitable sand dunes, seemed like another country. For the rest of the century, the Outside Lands were home to saloons and cemeteries.
    After a 1901 law prohibited burials within city limits, the cemeteries fell into ruin. By 1950, all had been closed, and most of the bodies had been moved south to Colma. The City Cemetery, a grave for paupers and minorities, was razed in 1909. After removing the unclaimed gravestones, the city put them to practical use. At Buena Vista Park, one often comes across strange words and dates inscribed in the stone gutters. Old photographs of Ocean Beach show sandy hillsides covered with discarded headstones—a makeshift seawall.
    In 1912, construction of Lincoln Park Golf Course began atop the old City Cemetery. A few times, Jake and I played golf there. We took Emma with us—she loved the long walk over green hills, the amazing views. From the 17 th fairway we could see Golden Gate Bridge and the mouth of the bay. I often wondered if the golfers were aware of what lay beneath their feet. In 1993, during a renovation project, 300 corpses were unearthed. Among the buried belongings were dentures, rosaries, and Levi’s. The discovery led city officials to look into what had happened to the 11,000 bodies interred at the City Cemetery. They could not be accounted for in Colma. They could not be accounted for anywhere. They appear to have simply been left behind.

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    The Holga lens is exactly opposite of what a true optical quality lens should be. It is constructed of cheap plastic, and often has inherent distortions. The result is an unpredictable, soft focus which imparts its own sense of mood and atmosphere.
    —Lomographic Society International
             
    I CANNOT REMEMBER now if Emma was running or skipping. I try to re-create that moment in my mind, the moment she turned away from me. Was she laughing? And why didn’t I ask her to slow down? I knew she was going too fast, at too great a distance from me. I knew the image would be blurred. And yet I snapped the picture thoughtlessly, as if it were just any snapshot, expendable. How could I have known it would be one of my last pictures of her?
    Now, no matter how many times I print the third photo on the roll from Ocean Beach, no matter how much I experiment with focus and exposure time, burning and dodging to adjust light and contrast, the print always comes out gray and grainy, always vague. In the foreground, the seal pup: white fur dusted with sand, black spots, the C of the spine. In the distance, Emma. The black-and-white film and the softening effect of the foggy light lend the images a mysterious quality, dreamlike.
    Each photo is a single moment, seemingly complete, but what is missing is the context: the absence of breath, the utter stillness, the fact of the seal pup’s death. What is missing is the kidnapping, which played out beyond my field of vision.
    In the days after Emma’s disappearance, as my mind wandered to a million terrible places, I imagined her trapped in the wet depth of a wave, tumbling in the dark, breathing salt water into her lungs. I imagined the awful panic she would have felt as the water pulled her under. But I know this isn’t what happened. Jake and I had taken Emma to the beach dozens of times before that day. Never once had she gone near the water, not so much as to put a toe in. What Jake says about Ocean Beach is true—the waves are wild and unpredictable—but still, in order to have drowned, Emma would have had to wander very close. It simply isn’t something she would have done.

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    I T’S DAY twenty, eleven p.m., and I’m on the phone with Annabel again.
    “Where are you?” she asks.
    “The casting pools.”
    “What?”
    “In Golden Gate Park.”
    “Are you out of your mind?” she says. “It’s not safe.”
    “I have mace.”
    “But why are you there?”
    “The police say they’ve covered every inch of the park, but that’s not possible. It’s too