Deborahanne Mayer
Hiding at the beach
Sometimes in the mirror - especially first thing in the morning, clear-eyed - I see my father's face. It can be a flash of an expression, the look around the eyes, the shape of the mouth or cheek, a twisting of the lips. There he is.
It's not a pleasant experience, looking in the mirror. The punch-in-the-gut feeling starts low and deep and ends up almost strangling me in its violence. At one point, the mixture of disgust and despair would make me so angry, I just stopped looking in the mirror. How dare he, invading every little corner of my life, trying to take charge, to take over my body?...
Hiding in the closet
‘Linda just stands there, feet going back ... and forth. I grab her hand and say, “Let’s go play,†and we run outside into the unrelenting sun.’
To this day, bologna always reminds me of the smell of rotting death. My sister, Linda, always ate what was in her lunch box, including her sandwich. I, on the other hand, would skip the sandwich and just eat the snacks and drink the tepid milk box. Ah, but...