Emily decided to try it out on her sisters, it was the safest choice in her mind. She pressed the button and… Nothing happened. Sure, the camera spat a photo, but her sisters were unchanged in it, as they did in reality, for that matter. Or was she simply unaware of it? Had Jacki, Ali and herself always identical triplets? Where the three of them already girls?
She was so lost in those questions she didn't notice when her mother entered, making Alice and Jacqueline cower behind her. It's Rita's sigh that finally put her out of ‘trance’. "I suppose I should have expected it… Ali, Jacki, go see your aunt downstairs so I can have a little chat with your sister." The two girls were about to object, she insisted. "Go, or I punish you for the whole week."
Once she was alone with Emily, Rita closed the door and sat near her daughter, taking her in a hug. "I'm sorry Emi, the truth is… The camera broke a few month after I accidentally turned myself into Rita Carter. You see, this magical artifact" she said, brandishing the Polaroïd camera "had an curse placed on it, to ensure its power would be used. It conspired with my new hormones and motherly instinct, making me use it on anything I believed could threaten the fact I was now Rita, young mother of identical triplets. I used it so intensively, it broke, becoming little more than an ordinary camera, although one that's never out of film."
"When I realized you still remembered your old life, even after being reborn, I panicked. How could I announce to you that the camera broke, that we couldn't go back to our old life anymore? So I pretended that I was forgetting what reality used to be for us, hopping you would learn to accept your new life… It probably would have been better if I said the truth."
"You wemembew how evewizin was zupposed to be, mommy?"
"Yes, sweetie. Are you reassured now?" Rita was about to make her daughter swear to never break in her office anymore, until she noticed how increasingly panicking was Emily. "Emi? What's wrong sweetie? Please, speak to mommy!"
"I… I'm fowgetin evewisin, mommy! I don't wemembe you old name, ow who aunty Lauwa used to be fow me! Mommy!" Emi was now bawling her eyes out in her mother's arms, head gently nested against Rita's chest.