Gabriela didn’t smile.

“What are you doing here, Evander?” “I saw the photograph.” Her expression shifted, and she stepped back to let me in.

The apartment smelled of vegetable soup and crayons and lavender soap.

Drawings covered the small kitchen table; a mug held a fistful of chewed pencils.

It was a simple, warm, real life — the life I had been told to be ashamed of.

I stood in that small warm room and felt the full obscenity of what my family had taught me.