“My uncle once asked me, ‘Are you a virgin?’ when I was already 27 years old. From that moment, I started to be afraid of him. And a few days later, when he took me to a hotel outside the city, he leaned close to my ear by the pool and whispered, ‘After the pool, come up to my room…’”

He gave a quiet laugh.

“I’ve never been good at keeping secrets.”

Then I remembered something.

I looked at him.

“And why did you ask me if I was a virgin?”

His face immediately turned red.

For a moment, he looked completely embarrassed.

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“I was trying to ask whether you were serious with someone, whether you were building your life around another person, whether you were making your own decisions.”

I stared at him.

“And somehow that became, ‘Are you a virgin?’”

Richard covered his face with one hand.

“I know. It may have been the worst question I’ve ever asked in my life.”

For the first time that day, I laughed.

That night, we stayed in Room 214 until almost midnight, opening my father’s letters one by one.

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Three months later, I opened my little photography studio.

On opening day, the first photograph I put on the wall wasn’t one of my own.