An unusual racket of crows caught my ear one Friday morning in June. Amid the familiar caw-caw of unsettled crows was a singular call that stood out. Higher pitched. Rougher. A sound that caught somewhere under my ribs before I understood why.

Mrs. Bryan taught me to memorize paintings when I was ten. I didn’t know the map she was giving me that year would lead me, decades later, to the Rijksmuseum—and to a part of myself I had misplaced.