The woman in the window A.J.Finn
Gruaja në dritare A.J.Finn
Before I tilt myself into bed, I peer through the window at
number 207. There they are, the family Russell, collected in
the parlor: Jane and Ethan on the sofa, Alistair seated in an
armchair across from them, speaking intently. A good man and
a good father.
Who knows what goes on in a family? I learned this as a
grad student. “You can spend years with a patient and still
they’ll surprise you,” Wesley told me after we’d shaken hands
for the first time, his fingers yellow with nicotine.
“How so?” I asked.
He settled himself behind his desk, clawed his hair back.
“You can hear someone’s secrets and their fears and their
wants, but remember that these exist alongside other people’s
secrets and fears, people living in the same rooms. You’ve
heard that line about all happy families being the same?”
“War and Peace,” I said.
“Anna Karenina, but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s
untrue. No family, happy or unhappy, is sort of like all other.
Tolstoy was chock-full o’ shit. Remember that.”
I remember it now as I gently thumb the focusing ring, as I
frame a photo. A family portrait.
But then I set the camera down
