I placed it in a box of photographs that belonged to the life I’d actually lived.

Before bed I opened the studio window.

The air smelled of damp earth, and somewhere nearby a child was laughing at a dog that refused to come inside.

For years, I had imagined freedom as an enormous, dramatic event.

That night it looked like a lamp I had chosen, a door I could open, and a morning that belonged to me.

PART 25