LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, APRIL 1971: It was three weeks before we had a proper conversation, and then we were clumsy because we were so used to paper. The whole building—the storefront plus the apartment above—had belonged to his grandmother, who left it to him. Once he mentioned this “saving” him in a way that made his voice shake, but mostly, we talk about our work. When Sam and I discuss photography, we understand each other in the same bone-deep way that you and I do when we talk about almost anything. When I was seventeen, I confused that feeling for love, but it’s more durable than that.

I wouldn’t have recognized him from his work. The photographer I’d known liked action: people driving or running or playing or fighting. I remember a shot of two boys duking it out inside a circle of onlookers that’s as good as any photograph I’ve ever taken—except Sam is a different photographer now. I’ve never been keen on cityscapes, but I like his trash cans and buildings and sidewalks and park benches better than most. They feel alive even though there’s nothing in them that’s living. Sam insists the life comes from the light. I can practically hear Mr. Wythe calling him the urban answer to the landscape photographers of the Great American West, but Sam isn’t interested in the likes of Mr. Wythe, or in showing his work anywhere other than the café. Sam is a different photographer now.

I’m finally working again, which means I’ve been well enough for long enough to get up each morning without first wondering if I’ll be able to get out of bed. To mindlessly dress, eat breakfast, and ride the bus downtown are daily miracles I hope you’ll never appreciate. According to the numbers, I know that in the next six months I may get sick again, but the numbers only come to mind every other week when I go downtown for my blood test and booster shot. It’s much nicer to measure my health by Jane, who can look me in the eye again because she’s no longer afraid of what she’ll see.

Jane is so used to taking care of herself that most days I feel more like her roommate than her mother, so I was surprised when she asked my permission to be in the school play. Of course you can be in the play, I said. Did you think I’d say otherwise? No, she told me, but she liked having me there to ask.