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. “Why I deserved it when he hit me and told me I was the biggest mistake in the world and he’d trade me for my mother in an instant. He said he wished I had died that day, not her.”

She stiffened and I felt the wet of her tears on my skin.

“Every place we went, I had to adjust. Find a pattern and routine. As soon as I did, he would yank me away, and we’d start again. His drinking got worse, the jobs paid less. We went from houses to apartments, then to rooms. Those were the worst. I had no way to get away from him, except to hang out at the library. There, I could lose myself in books, work on homework. It was my only peace.”

“How did you survive it?” she asked, her voice choked.

I shrugged. “I just did. When I was old enough, I got a job cleaning in a store after school. I found my birth certificate in a metal box he always took with us wherever we moved, and I went to the bank and opened an account in my own name. Every penny went in there so my father wouldn’t know. He didn’t care