The Prisoner at Thirty-Six

There had once been a moment of what felt like synchronicity—the doorbell of Janelle’s walk-up ringing, a character on the TV looking off-screen, as if in response—and from that moment, that kernel, she constructed a world, one in which she too was a character, her life an act, and after that it was easy—work, men, family—because she always had the muscles in her neck tensed, her head ready to turn to a sound from another world, her eyes for an instant of recognition catching a woman alone on her couch with a glass of wine, holding it a certain way because she’d seen someone do it that way on TV once, and it just felt so right.