Chapter 17 - MIA STOPPED WATCHING THE DOORMia watched doors for two years.
Restaurants.
Classrooms.
Bedrooms.
If someone entered unexpectedly, her shoulders tightened.
At ten, she joined a children’s photography club.
I worried cameras would remind her of surveillance.
She chose them because control mattered.
“A camera should ask permission,” she said.
Her first project photographed empty rooms after people left.
Her second photographed family hands.
No faces.
Claire’s hand holding a coffee cup.
Leo’s hand on a dinosaur.
Mine resting open on a table.
Sophia’s hand appeared through an old photograph.
Mia called the project:
HANDS THAT DO NOT TAKE.
It won a school exhibition.
A reporter asked whether she wanted to discuss Elena.
Mia said no.
The reporter continued.
I ended the interview.
Mia corrected me afterward.
“I can answer.”
“I thought you wanted me to protect you.”
“I did. But ask first.”
She was right.
Protection without consent could become another form of control.
At the next interview, I waited.
Mia declined herself.
May you like
Then smiled at me.
We were both learning.
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