When I replied, on a blue aerogram I’d had to buy at the post office, I told him about the lack of progress with my painting, about my despair. But everything else was alright, I said. The children fine. Howard sends his regards, I wrote.

I wrote nothing in reply to his political comments, to his comments about the ANC and Mandela. There were too many things I wanted to say, and none of them seemed possible to say. I couldn’t mention Joseph, so that left me with nothing.

Eric could probably feel my mood, the stasis of where I was, in my letter. And then I thought: I should try to sound more cheerful. But then: no, I can’t do that, I don’t like to pretend. And then: I wish I could have told Eric about Joseph, I wish I had.

Later I remember looking out over the pool, the garden, and thinking how disconnected everything was, and how alone I was. Howard was still preoccupied with his work, and I had stopped asking him about Jack Benator, it seemed we accepted it was safe to have Joseph with us, so he would just stay.

And then I thought of my mother. Perhaps this was how my mother felt every day, as she sat on her porch with her knitting, her bag with the tortoiseshell handle, next to her cacti. The blank street in front of her, only Maggie, Maggie who could be called — summoned — to come.

And what use was Maggie? I pictured her bleary eyes, the hot yard where she’d be sitting. On her chair, under the narrow shadow cast by the roof of the house.

But I was not my mother.

Joseph, I thought. Joseph.

Joseph held a different future for everything. What Joseph was planning would change everything, it would shift everything. No: overturn everything. Howard was not wrong to have Joseph with us; it was right, the right thing to do.

I went back into the house and felt much better. I called my mother. Mom, I said, you should do something different sometimes. What are you talking about, she said. Jacqueline? And then I felt very impatient and said I had to go.

I FORCED MYSELF to go into my studio. And then I’d sit for hours, my head against the chair back, my eyes closed. It was still a peaceful place. I fiddled with some acrylics, I had bought some from Eric’s shop before he left. Try acrylic for a while, he said, maybe something will shift for you. I would try that.

And then I thought: the real problem with my painting started when Joseph came, when Joseph moved into that room. It disturbed me so much, his being there. It was as simple as that.