Again, she bites back some piece of candor. She’s on to me and my tricks, and still she nearly slips. She wants to unburden herself, I can see that. Most people do. We all carry some burden or another, pressing into that tender spot between neck and shoulder, invisible to others, which we wouldn’t mind shucking off for a blessed moment. But we rarely do. To shuck off our burden is to show it to the world, and then what would the world say? The world would judge your burden, that’s what. The world would judge it, and how you’ve carried it all these years, and whether your burden is more or less than any other person’s, and what all this says about you. Sometimes you’re just better off carrying the damn thing into eternity.

Evidently Lindquist feels the same way. She shrugs and digs back into her omelet. “Don’t you know the answer to that already? You’re the one writing the biography.”

“But that’s why I’m here, Mrs. Lindquist. To hear the truth from the person who knew him best.”

“Me? What makes you say that?”

I reach for my pocketbook. “Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Lindquist?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, call me Irene.”

I light up a cigarette, even though she hasn’t actually given permission. Gives me a moment to gather my thoughts. I toss the lighter back in my pocketbook and say, “You know something? I think I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself. What I should have done, right from the beginning, is given you some background. That’s a nice word we have in the newspaper world, background. Means everything you really want to know about a person.”

“I thought you were a photographer, not a journalist.”

“I’m a photojournalist, Mrs. Lindquist. I take pictures for newspapers. You know, a picture tells a thousand words? That’s what I do.”

“But you want to write a biography, you said. Not a picture book.”

I blow out a little smoke. “Not just any biography. I want to write a whole new kind of biography. I mean, have you ever read one? Start to finish? My God, they’re all so dull! Just facts and figures and dry little clips from letters, that kind of thing. I think it’s because the men write them. The little dears think life can be boiled down to facts, that the facts are what’s important, that facts are somehow akin to truth. I’ll tell you something, the facts are the least important thing about a person.”

“Oh? So what’s important?”