Life is an intolerable burden if you have no idea what to do with it. I was a writer, but not the writer I needed to be. For that I had to become a different person. I thought the answer was Ed and maybe it was. He and I belonged together: the pressure of a more coherent self would have been intolerable. My loneliness had the taint of corruption. Was it part of an act? Displaying my deformity like a beggar in order to gain a penny? Ed’s seemed to me pure, stark, without context, without audience, as though pain were certainty—as though having pain were the same as having certainty. What is the right question to ask about a life? Ed exploded in rages he did not understand. His fury struck like dangerous weather. War in all directions, all against all. Our dog, Lily, crawled onto my lap and trembled as he stormed above, his features distorted or perhaps revealed.