But she persevered. She learned to trim scenes using a slider that snapped to random frames. She discovered a “noise reduction” filter that made everyone look like watercolor paintings. She added a title card: “The Annie Years – Volume 1” in Comic Sans, because that was the only font that rendered correctly.

She played it on her living room DVD player. There was her husband—young, with a mustache, laughing as he pushed Annie on a swing. The audio was slightly out of sync, and a green line flickered along the bottom. But it was there . Saved.

The tray ejected. A shiny, silver DVD sat there. She wrote on it with a Sharpie: “Annie – 1992–1998. Don’t lose this.”

Years later, Annie would transfer that DVD to a cloud drive, then to a thumb drive, then to whatever came next. But she never forgot the original. The menus were clunky, the transitions corny, and the Honestech logo permanently watermarked in the corner—a small, honest ghost.