SAM DECKER: I knew it was photography money paying for Lilly’s medical bills and Jane’s tuition, but I never considered which photographs, and Lilly never said. Sunday at Dorothy’s, I was at the sink washing dinner plates when the phone rang. Dot’s voice lit up when she said she’d accept the charges. Dot was a nice old lady. She loved Jane the way my meemaw loved me, with about as little to show for it. When she handed the phone to Lilly, the next thing I knew, Lilly was sitting at the kitchen table looking like a bleached-out version of herself. She’s gone, Lilly said. I’ve lost her for good.

JOURNAL ENTRY, MARCH 1976: The question isn’t whether I should have sold the photographs—that was a matter of survival—but whether I should have tried harder to tell you. I know what I meant to say all those years ago, the last time you visited me in the hospital before we left New York, but I was so sick then. It’s possible I said only part of what I intended, or nothing at all. At the time, I consoled myself with how careful I’d been with Mr. Wythe in setting the terms: the photographs could never be resold, donated, or otherwise placed in anyone else’s possession; the purchase was never to be publicized in any way; and the photos could only ever be shown privately in Mr. Creeland’s home. I told myself that you were protected. Would things have been different if I hadn’t been so sick the night you took the train from Brooklyn? If I’d had the strength to tell you properly? If you had learned the truth at fifteen, would you have reacted the way you have at twenty-one, or would you have found a way to make peace with what I did? In the days after your call, I dialed and redialed the only number I had for you. Finally, a man answered and told me that you were gone.

113. Franny Panic, Agora Ballroom parking lot, Cleveland, 1976

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, AUGUST 1976: I hadn’t heard of Ms. Panic, but when my students explained about the song, I thought it’d be interesting to go. She’s popular enough that I’m sure my students would have gone anyway, but at the club, most of them seemed just as interested in watching me. When I stepped outside for some air, I saw a woman sitting cross-legged on the hood of a car, picking at a scab on her knee like a girl half her age. I didn’t realize until I saw that same young woman growling into the microphone that it was Ms. Panic whose picture I’d taken. The song’s anger reminded me of you. In our East Seventh Street days, I didn’t know myself well enough to say it, but you were someone who knew how to get angry, which was something I both feared and was wild to learn.