My husband, Amari, didn’t understand this escape. To him, a thirty-two-year-old senior mechanic at an auto body shop, the world was simple and material. The car must run, dinner must be on the table, and his wife must greet him with a smile. He condescendingly referred to my research as a “hobby.”

“What’s up, historian?” he’d say, walking into the kitchen where I, surrounded by books, tried to squeeze in a chapter between chores. “Choking on centuries of dust again? You’d be better off frying up some catfish.”