When I was eight years old, my head swarmed with nothing more than bright flashes of television, landmines of toys on my bedroom floor, the sweet scent of my father when he arrived home from work, always a cocktail of cold and sweat and cologne when I buried my face in his neck. Life rolled by with homework and spans of playtime from three until the sun went down, my mother calling me inside from our cracked front step. At night the humming of the fan was a lullaby.

I never thought dressing and parading my Barbie Dolls across the sidewalk was something to hide until he swerved down my street on his bike, all I remember are the tires, the way he stopped and put two feet on the street to balance himself while he called out something in that childish sing-song voice, silly at twenty-five but…