Despite my gratitude for the various combinations of kindness and generosity and forgetting that allowed us to visit, I was looking forward to going home when your grandmother made her unexpected offer. As soon as I saw your face, I knew it would be cruel not to let you stay. And why not, when staying means a mattress with a ruffled bed skirt and matching curtains in a bedroom twice the size of our shared one at home; a grandmother to show you the city; and a grandfather who reads to you from the same Hans Christian Andersen book he once read to me, with the same character voices that made me forget where I was until “The End” brought me back to his lap.

Your absence means darkroom time to print my photos exactly as I’d like for the Lacuna show without relying on my prescription, but the apartment is empty without you. When I look around, I worry that you’ll be disappointed with the home you’re returning to. Grete teases me about this. She’s used to a daughter who travels between two worlds that are no less different for being at opposite ends of a subway line. Grete is right, of course, because each Sunday when you telephone, you ask me questions—Is it hot? When you get back, can we go to Coney Island? Can Kaja sleep over? Is Mr. Fanelli opening up the hydrant with his special key?—that show me all the ways you look forward to coming back. Then there was your excitement describing the shopping trip to Higbee’s with your grandmother, and the new dress that you insist on keeping a surprise until the night of the gallery opening. I can’t wait to see you in it.

“The Samantha Series”

63. Samantha’s tattoo, Brooklyn, 1959

“Brooklyn Lives, photographed by Lillian Preston” opened at the Lacuna Gallery on September 14, 1963. My dress was white organdy and taffeta, with a blue embroidered Peter Pan collar, blue embroidered birds on the front, a blue velvet ribbon at the waist, and remains the fanciest piece of clothing I have ever owned. It was a summer dress, and Lillian warned me I would be cold, but I didn’t care. I spent that whole evening rubbing my hands up and down my goosebumped arms as I stood at the back wall where my photos were arranged in chronological order, starting with Samantha’s tattoo and ending with Sleepwalker. Grinning like a maniac, I waited for people to ask for my autograph. My mother had told me gallery openings didn’t work that way, but I was ready, just in case.