Working on Lamin’s visa paperwork, buying Lamin’s air ticket, organizing Lamin’s departure and arrival, his pickups and his drop-offs, enduring the e-mails back and forth between him and Judy at every stage of this planning, devoting all time and energy to somebody else’s existence, to somebody else’s desires and needs and requirements. It’s a shadow life and after a while it gets to you. Nannies, assistants, agents, secretaries, mothers—women are used to it. Men have a lower tolerance.
