Unlike Charles’s photo, all we get here is the dark silhouette of Lillian’s head and shoulders centered along the picture’s bottom edge. My guess is that she’s standing on Ninth, because I remember seeing rails there from the old streetcar route. The way the rails pass through her dark outline at a diagonal makes it seem like her silhouette has fallen onto the tracks and can’t get up. Depending on my mood, this feels either funny, like her shadow is a cartoon character, or disturbing, like her shadow is, well, her shadow.

If she’d opted for a boring title like Ninth Street, none of this would be an issue, but something called Self-portrait begs interpretation. Grete, as Lillian’s onetime closest friend, is better equipped for that than I am. I figured she’d be just as hard to find as everybody else, but for kicks I started by trying the old phone number that had lodged in my memory along with assorted jingles, elementary schoolteachers’ names, and state birds, dating from when my brain was absorbent and spongy. Grete picked up on the second ring.

GRETE WASHINGTON: One day Lillian arrived at my door and said, I am leaving Ken. It came as a shock, but also I was surprised when Paul left me, so I think that I am not the best judge.

Lillian was very grave that day. I think this was an expression of her fear. I understood immediately why there could not be a second child. You will stay here, I told her, and she began to cry. In the many years of our friendship, I saw Lillian’s tears only twice. This time was the first.

The next morning Lillian and I left the girls with a kind neighbor while I borrowed a car from a friend. To pack their things needed most of the day, but we finished before Kenneth returned from work. Kenneth called many times after that. Once he came to the door. I could sense that something was breaking inside him each time he asked to speak to Samantha and Samantha refused. Kenneth thought that Lillian was keeping her from him, but really Lillian was trying very hard to change Samantha’s mind. I was watching on the morning Lillian told the truth to Samantha about Kenneth. I saw all the anger inside her. At first that anger turned to Lillian, but then Samantha struck her head on the table. When you need comfort and you are angry at the only person who can comfort you, what can you do? Samantha needed her mother. So I think her heart made a decision.

Kaja and I were living in a one-bedroom parlor flat with tall ceilings. This let us stack Lillian’s materials very high. Lillian and I made a line with tape on the floor, and also a rule: no little girls on the box side of the line. It was too dangerous, not just for the girls but also for Lillian’s negatives and prints! As for Lillian’s camera, I knew she would not feel at home unless it was unpacked. When we set it on its tripod, her face relaxed a little.