In Georgia, we have an expression that speaks to our limited human understanding of our own actions and motivations. We say “I call myself.” In that tradition, I can say that I called myself writing my first novel, “Leaving Atlanta,” in order to remind the world that in the early 1980s, 30 African-American children were killed in my hometown; two of them were students at my elementary school. I believed myself to be banging on the door of History, demanding that my memories be let in.

But as we also know in the South, what you call yourself doing and what you are called to do are often two different things.

With the zeal of a novice, I hit the road, accepting every invitation to read from my book. If my publisher paid for the trip, that was great. If they didn’t, well, that’s what credit cards were for. People called me “ambitious,” which is not always a compliment. I fretted about book sales, stewed about reviews and pouted over every end-of-year list that didn’t include my book.

Still on the grind over a year later, I accepted an invitation to read in Atlanta at a two-year college, not far from where I grew up. I read in a cafeteria at lunchtime, raising my voice to be heard over the conversation and the clatter of dishes. Afterward, I was approached by a young woman who was about my age. “It really happened,” she said, her voice breaking. “I didn’t trust my own mind. I thought I had imagined our entire childhood.” Her anguish I couldn’t understand, but the relief on her face was real.

She didn’t have money to buy a book, so I gave her my reading copy. As I signed it, a cool washed over me like a fever breaking. This was the end of the tour. She was the one I had been looking for. She was the whole point. My letter to the world was really a letter to one stranger, whose name I don’t even know.