Such premium paranoia was hard to maintain, especially when it became apparent that no policeman had the vaguest interest in me. My hypervigilance aside, the sole difference in the weeks following my mother’s return was that Lillian noticed only half of what I said or did, and on Thursdays Nina arrived with so much chow mein that on Fridays I feasted on leftover Chinese for breakfast.

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, OCTOBER 1963: Naturally, I agree with Nina. The photographs certainly aren’t “obscene” and ought to be shown, though Nina couldn’t have helped matters by telling Michael Stromlin the truth about Mommy is sick. I didn’t swear her to secrecy, so perhaps it’s silly to feel she betrayed a confidence, but I feel betrayed all the same!

When I explained this to Nina, she became impatient. Of course she told a New York Times critic about Mommy is sick. Didn’t I understand that was her job? But didn’t she understand that I’d been talking to her not as my gallerist but as my friend? Nina claims that if I didn’t want people to know the truth about the photo, then I shouldn’t have shown it to begin with. In one way, she’s right: I do want people to know the truth. But the truth I want them to know is a mother’s pain and a child’s fear, the love between them, and their loneliness. Now all anyone will see when they look at Mommy is sick is a woman who’s had an illegal abortion.

The civil rights lawyer Nina found is called Marcus Sheer. He has sad eyes and large hands and works in a dingy office in downtown Manhattan with a window overlooking an alley. I liked him right away. He reminds me of John Bosco, laid-back and tenacious at the same time. Marcus told us straight off in his nonchalant yet no-nonsense way that Nina’s charge—intent to sell obscene materials—was more the sort of thing he was used to, though he thought my child-endangerment case was just as promising. The colleague he talked to agreed: these are both pioneering First Amendment cases. If we decide to fight, chances are better than even that we will win. Nina smiled at this, but “better than even” doesn’t sound to me like terribly good odds. When I asked Mr. Sheer what happens if we lose, he shrugged. “Then we appeal,” he said, “and we keep appealing if we have to, moving up the system until we get somewhere.” And if, after all that, we still lose? “That depends,” he said. “It could mean a fine; it might mean jail time; or maybe both.” When he said that, my hands and feet went cold.