In the boarding school memoir, the narrator describes one forbidden window that opened onto the service road rather than the landscaped lawn. Students used it to hear delivery drivers laughing and to smell rain on asphalt. Years later, returning as headmistress, she is asked to seal the window for energy efficiency. She signs the maintenance order. The chapter ends with her standing alone in the corridor, turning the window crank until outside air lifts the edge of the order in her hand.