Dancing on the Edge

When I was little, the room in which I spent most time — being of a sickly disposition, in a society not yet used to the existence of antibiotics — didn’t have a window. Well, it kind of did, but it was a slit high up on the wall behind me, to capture the light that came into the living room through the two sidelights on the front door.

But on the wall, in front of me, there was a picture of an angel walking behind a boy and a girl, while the boy and the girl, blithely walk at the edge of...