After that we went out a lot together. Abdul wanted to go everywhere: The Bronx Zoo, Central Park, the Bowery, even riding the tram to Roosevelt Island at night just to see the lights. “I love being outside,” he said. And I could feel how much he enjoyed it. Then he took my hand and held it for a long time. The halfway house helped him find a job, and at night he studied Arabic. He had ideas about women, strict ideas. But I had ideas about men. I was a dancer, I could bend. I had had lots of practice. I told him that maybe I could teach him a few things. He laughed at first. Then we talked. He was learning another language and moving in a different space. I felt good with him. I liked the sound of his name and the soft way he said “Ruella.” I tried imitating his voice when I was alone or staying late at rehearsals.

The opening was in a few weeks. And Phillip would be out on parole soon. I was afraid he’d want to stay with me. When you have family you don’t have to go to a halfway house. I was afraid of Phillip being that free. Truth is, I was afraid he’d be like Jesse and want all of my space, the space I was just beginning to share with myself and Abdul. Jesse filled that space with so many horrors I could barely breathe. Abdul showed me other spaces. Spaces inside. I still had a little time to think things through.

Before rehearsal one Saturday Abdul suggested we visit the Statue of Liberty. We left early in the morning to have enough time to climb all the way inside. I hadn’t been there since I was a little girl in a crowd of summer tourists. The winding stairs inside the green metal gown seemed endless and huge, but this time the stairs were only wide enough for one pair of feet in a slow climb. Abdul climbed in front of me and held my hand, easing me up and around the narrowing spiral. When we neared the top to look out from the windowed crown, Abdul stepped back as if he had hit a wall. Then I felt it—a wall of heat that came from the sun beaming on the shut windows. “What heat,” I said, pulling back.

“It’s not just the heat,” he said. Then he pointed to the Wall Street area and the twin World Trade Center buildings. All you could see were the thousand squares of windows towering up. “That’s the view from the joint, too,” he said.

“What do you mean?”