“You threw a terrible tantrum because your little arm couldn’t reach behind the iron pipes,” she said.

“Frank must have pulled the radiator away from the baseboard after he packed up your clothes.”

I picked up the green plastic horse and felt the smooth, worn seam along its belly under my fingers.

Frank had carried this five-cent horse off with him the day he took me out of the building on Elm Street, leaving the empty apartment behind.

“He told me my birth mother died in a three-car pileup on Highway twenty-three near Flint,” I said.