The thing I want to say about those eighteen years is that I was not unhappy and I was not a martyr, whatever this account has sounded like so far.

I raised a boy in a workshop, and he turned out to be the best-natured person I have ever met, and the two of us had the kind of life where you know exactly what everything costs and you do not have very much and the day has a shape to it.

What I was, for eighteen years, was certain.

Certain that I knew what my family was.