“The only thing that carried a pulse in that apartment was an uncomfortably large print in the living room – a painting of a smiling girl-gymnast with silk angel wings, arms outstretched on a balance beam, rainbow colors bleeding off her and then melting into a dark expanse. I guess it was supposed to be inspirational – Through Me All Things Are Possible, it said in flamingo pink script – but the glow in the girl, the pitch-blackness of her eyes, gave me vertigo. Like looking down through a bridge of glass onto the Milky Way.”