My Father Tried to Force Me to Sell the House Until Police Walked In and Said My Rank Out Loud

like a small, lit city. Grandma’s letters in their floral envelopes, the ink shaky but the sentences never.

She had written once, in the third year I was gone: Duty makes you strong, not hard. There is a difference, Naomi. One of them closes you and one of them opens you.

I had carried that sentence like a coin in my pocket ever since.

The truth about continue reading …