led into my neighborhood when my foot slipped from its pedal. I jerked it up, my laces snapping. I couldn’t regain control of the handlebars. Tires whining and breath rattling, I swerved then tumbled to the concrete. Lying on my back, I stared up at the sky, gasping for air.
 

It was a beautiful day. The maple trees, a deep red and the air pleasant. My bike was cast off a few feet away, scratched up and lying on its side. The back tire spun with a slow tick, tick,
ticking.
 

Weakly, I sat up, gravel digging into pulpy palms. My bare knees trickled crimson, black dirt embedded into the gashes. A car whizzed by, the driver not giving a second look. Tears sprang into  my eyes. I was only seven.
 

I limped back home, wheeling my bike at my side, blood draining down my shins, leaving small droplets on the ground. When I  came into view of my house, daylight was beginning to fade.
 

I called to Alyssa, who was drawing with chalk in the driveway. She looked up, then jumped to her feet. Her pony tail wagged as she ran toward me, I let my bike tip over into the neighbor's lawn. She lifted my arm over her shoulders and wiped the tears off my face.
 

When we walked inside, Buster, our brown mutt, licked my knee. Letting out a disgusted gasp, Alyssa swatted at his nose then used her cheerleader voice to yell for our parents. My mother ran in first, wearing her kitchen apron. “Oh no,” she cooed. “It’s okay. You’re alright now. Just go sit down in the bathroom, and I’ll get your dad.”

That was the procedure for bike injuries: my too-squeamish mother sending me out of sight so my father could sterilize my road rash. So, off I limped to the bathroom.
 

In those times, my father usually worked in his office on the weekends. He edited the local newspaper, a job my mother always said he took too seriously. Once my blood had dried, he walked in with indentions on either side of his nose from his reading classes. “Wow,” he said, almost impressed, “you got pretty roughed up this time.”
 

I laughed, trying to act brave, but my stomach was turning sour. I dreaded the sting and burn of cleaning cuts. He opened the cabinet the way I envisioned a mad scientist would. He laid his
instruments on the side of the sink: a few rags, cotton balls, isopropyl alcohol, bandages, and mercurochrome—a bright red antiseptic that came in a small glass dropper.
 

I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub—his subject waiting to be disinfected. Rag in hand, he bent down and began to gently scrub the wounds. As I squirmed, he held my legs in place. His brow crinkled. “Stop whining,” he said flatly. I set my teeth at the grotesque squelch the rag made as it mashed into my skin. Once he was satisfied, he threw the rag into the sink and reached for the alcohol.
 

I stood up. “Dad, wait.”
 

He looked down at me, his head lowered as if he were looking over the top of his reading glasses. “It will only hurt for a second,” he said, voice leveled, “sit down.”

​

Afraid of what would happen if I protested, I obeyed. He tipped the glass bottle upside down, the alcohol soaking the new rag. Then he bent down. I held my breath, and watched, wide-eyed as the rag inched closer. There was a rush of sparks, then the bite of his hand clamped against my shin. When I began to cry, he sighed through his nose. “Stop being a girl,” he said.

​

October 13th, 1962, a week later
 

I trudged down the steps, my feet heavy from sleep. At the end of the staircase, I took a breath, breathing in the sweet, coffee-smelling air. From this alone, I knew my father was awake and downstairs.  When I walked into the living room, he was sitting

in his recliner, doing the crossword.

He heard me dragging my feet against the carpet, then looked

up from over his glasses. “What are you doing up this early on a Saturday?” he asked, not surprised, more just irritated that I

had interrupted his morning ritual.
 

“I don’t know,” I said, still not all there.  As I sat down on the couch, he didn’t respond. Instead, he clicked his tongue and focused on his puzzle. I sat, slowly gathering my wits. I’m not

sure what I did after that, probably just stared, studying my father as he thought, taking sips of coffee between scribbling down words.

“Dad, why don’t we ever see your parents?” I asked, breaking his silence. I don’t remember why I thought to ask. I guess I was at the age when you begin to ask serious questions.
 

He dropped the newspaper on his lap then took off his readers. “Well,” he began, with a serious face, “when I was a boy, my parents weren’t good to me. So, when I was old enough, I
ran away.”
 

I looked down at my feet, not sure what to think. “Did you ever talk to them again?” I asked, wondering if there was a chance I’d ever meet them.
 

“No,” he said with a sad smile.
 

“What were they like?”
 

He didn’t answer right away. He sat back in his chair, his eyebrows furrowed with thought. Finally, he looked back at me, eyeing me over as if trying to decide something. “They
didn’t do the things parents are supposed to do,” he began. “They wouldn’t feed me enough and they’d beat me just for the hell of it,” he said, his voice surprisingly level. I felt my mouth fall
open as I sat back against the couch, scared as I imagined my father as a boy about my age, his parents larger-than-life villains.

He must have seen the look on my face. He leaned
forwards in his recliner. “But, you don’t have to worry about anything like that,” he reassured me.

​

October 14th, 1962, the next day
 

My mother’s fingers dug into my arm as she frantically hurried down the hospital hallway. I was at her side, on the verge of breaking into a run. Looking up, I watched the sterile, overhead lights blur past. Small flecks of light swam in my eyes as I sat down in the waiting room chair.

My mother was talking to a man I had seen in passing a few times, my father’s colleague. “What happened?” I heard her whisper as they stood waiting at the front desk. She was blinking
back tears as the man spoke with a wrinkled brow.

I stared down at my scabbed knees, my feet swinging above the ground as I waited, the tacky leather of the chair sticking to the back of my legs. Earlier that morning, my father had stopped by  his office for a few hours, something that wasn’t unusual for him to do over the weekends. Then the phone call came. Alyssa and I were sitting on the living room floor playing a game of jacks when we heard the phone ring. Our mother answered, and within seconds we were rushing out the door.
 

I stared at the man, trying to piece the story together. If he had arrived at the hospital before us, he must have checked my father in. But what was wrong with him? Eventually, my mother made her way to the desk. After a brief conversation, the attendant handed her a clipboard full of paperwork. Still whispering to each other, together my mother and the man sat down, skipping a few chairs between Alyssa and I.
 

I don’t remember feeling worried at first. After all, I had rarely ever seen my father sick. However, as I caught snippets of my mother’s conversation, and watched Alyssa’s expression
grow increasingly distressed, I began to feel something was being kept secret.
 

I stood up and walked over to my mother and the man, Alyssa trailing behind me. They stopped talking. “What’s wrong with Dad?” I asked, staring down at the hem of my mother’s
polka-dotted dress.

She licked her lips and glanced at the man, constructing a response. “While your dad was at work, he got hurt, so Jerry took him here. Now he’s in surgery, so the doctors can fix him.”
 

“Hurt how?” Alyssa asked.
 

She hesitated, looking at Jerry again. “We don’t know right now. I don’t want you guys to worry. It’s going to be okay. We’re just going to wait until your dad is out of surgery, and then we can go see him.”

I still had a dozen questions to ask, but I knew my mother didn’t like it when I asked questions.

​

July 22nd, 1972, ten years later
 

I was sitting at my desk, trying to read. My eyelids clicked as I slowly blinked at the words on the page. They blinked back—inky black letters disappearing and reappearing as my vision grew fuzzy. I hadn’t slept the previous night. Guiltily, I decided to give in and take a nap.

Rising from my desk chair, I flopped on my bed. Almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, I began to dream.

I was sitting in a hospital cafeteria, watching as a line of people pushed their trays down the counter, servers in white aprons ladling out globs of food. Though it was a dream, I knew I
had been there before. I looked down at my own tray.  In the center was a blob of a grayish-looking soup.  stirred it with my spoon, slimy chunks of meat and strands of hair swirling in the middle. 

​

"Will, eat your food," a voice to my side said. I looked over. My​

mother was sitting beside me, smoothing out the skirt of her polka-dotted dress. I swallowed the spit in my mouth and 

ignored her, grossed out. Maybe she wouldn’t ask again. I

watched as she laid her makeup out on the tabletop, and then

as she applied a red lipstick. I laid down my spoon.  This isn’t what really happened, I thought.

.

Suddenly, I was back in the waiting room chair. Music boomed from an old gramophone in the corner, but I couldn’t understand the lyrics. Alyssa was sitting next to me. “Where’s Dad?” I asked. I stared at her, but she wouldn’t look at me.

The music became louder. I covered my ears. Suddenly, a nurse came out into the waiting room. The music stopped.

​

“McClain?” she said, as she looked around, waiting for someone to stand up. We all rose to our feet at the same time, following the nurse down the hallway. As we walked, I glanced into the hospital rooms. Every room was the same. Every room was empty. At last, we came to a closed door. The nurse pulled it open, her skinny arm seeming to strain against its weight.

​

From his bed, my father smiled at us as we stood in the doorway. He wore a white bandage wrapped around his head, but

otherwise, it was as though nothing had happened. I ran inside and gave him a hug. 

​“Can you come home now?” I asked.​