My lawyer speaks for me because I’m losing control of my own affairs. I dream of murdering people, even though I’m not a violent person. In the attic, a trunk — a chest or box — I sometimes open while looking out the window at the garden gate because I can’t bear to glimpse what Mother has locked inside. Near the staircase is a ladder to another window, a view of my neighbor’s house — a window looking into another window of another’s world. The ladder I’m afraid to climb for fear of going too high and looking into a room I’m not supposed to see. In the house, I’m drowning in narrow spaces with photographs lost in purses. As a child, I was the victim of a kidnapping. My captor was someone I knew. I will never say his name because I know him, even now. He was once a dear friend of my family, grown ever dearer and more frightening over time.
Photo By: Grant Hutchinson
