When I layered my image into the Straubs’ kitchen, it was a way to spend time with the Straubs, all of whom I missed terribly, and a way to fully inhabit their home and their life. I found stock photos of pots and pans online and layered them into the scene too, along with cutting boards, knives, vegetables, and fruit. I already had photos of Natalie and Piper watching Mean Girls. And now I had photos of myself cooking. I cut back and forth between the images to create a short slideshow. One would have inferred that I was their mother, or possibly Natalie’s big sister. Then I cut to photos of Natalie and Piper sound asleep in Natalie’s room. That came afterward in the sequence. Then, at the end of the evening, I cut to photos of me and Fritz. We were making love in the Straubs’ bedroom. I had already taken independent photos of Fritz, me, and the Straubs’ bedroom. I just had to layer our bodies on their bed. Fritz’s naked body posed a bit of a challenge, but I combined a few different images, some I had taken myself and some from Amelia’s Instagram account—pictures of him in his swimsuit. As luck would have it, the light in all of these was coming from the same direction, hitting him at the same angle. I had more than one AI “undressing” app on my computer. All I had to do was input Fritz’s image in a swimsuit, and after a couple of minutes, I’d get Fritz completely nude, front, back and side views. The computer’s best guess of what he’d look like naked was close, but inferior to my best guess, so I tweaked the computer-generated image, changing the skin tone and muscle tone slightly.

I was pleased with my creation.

I inserted a photo of Amelia and me together in the cooking section. She was reading a recipe to me and I was mixing the ingredients in a bowl. It looked to be my home and I was cooking with my dear friend Amelia. I found it comforting to play the slideshow for myself and watched it several times. I especially liked the section with me and Fritz in the Straubs’ bed, our bodies pressed together. When I looked at the photos, I felt connected to a world and a life. I thought about replacing Fritz’s body with Amelia’s—an image of me and Amelia, our bodies pressed against each other. That would also be an uplifting vision, but I instinctively felt it would be a little harder to achieve.