At My Purple Heart Ceremony, My Stepmother Swung a Folding Chair Into My Arm—Then My Father Looked Down Instead of Protecting Me

“I know.”

I looked at him.

“No.”

He stopped.

“You keep saying you know things only after they happen in front of enough witnesses that you can’t deny them.”

His mouth opened.

Closed.

“When I was sixteen, Gertrude threw my backpack into the rain because I got home twenty minutes late from volleyball.”