My dad sat in his favorite chair looking at me, his eyes glistening and unable to focus. He could no longer remember my name or form a coherent sentence. Suspenders held up the pants that no longer fit his waist because he had become so frail and thin. Dementia had stolen his mind and Parkinson’s disease had weakened his body. When his eyes were finally able to focus on me, I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition, but with dementia, you can never be sure.

Paris is still in confinement, and I’m still jogging early every morning. Each day, I get a little more daring, moving well beyond my permitted one kilometer from home. I pretend not to notice when a police car cruises past me on a side street. I look straight ahead when it stops by a man walking on the opposite pavement, breathing relief that they pick him, not me. We are only allowed out for one hour a day, and without the correct paperwork to prove our identity, the fines are steep. At worst, we will be thrown in jail.

I spent the morning weed whacking the pathways between my farm vegetable rows. Even in the slightly cooler morning hours, the heat was stifling, so I opted for shorts. Weed whacking done, I looked at myself, covered in dirt and grass clippings, dripping in sweat. I could hardly see my legs. Best not to head back to the house until lunchtime when I could hop in the shower. The tomatoes needed weeding, so I set to work pulling the lamb’s quarters and nutsedge from around the growing tomato vines.

Months into the pandemic, confined to our house by COVID-19 restrictions and the unrelenting Texas summer, I followed my restless eight-year-old into the pantry where the bulk of our interaction took place. We argued over what qualified as a healthy snack.

Brrring! The bell screeches, telling us that lunch is here.

A herd of tiny, boisterous bodies rushes into the open courtyard, waiting to eat, play, laugh, and talk together. Amongst them, a large group of girls congregate, buzzing with renewed excitement, eager to witness the daily ritual. I follow my friend, Githushka, out the door, rushing to get a prime spot.

Shapeshifting has been a facet of nearly every human culture, explored in art and literature through the ages. These human-animal entities can be glorious and divine, or sinister and grotesque. Typically, they exist symbolically—either the transformation or the resulting state is significant in some way. My own experience with shapeshifting was more clinically than artistically rendered, and I am still hazy on the message my experience was meant to convey.

You haven’t been home in a while. How long, I can’t quite say, but long enough for the stillness to solidify. Dust amasses discretely, until one day it forms a visible shell. I hear you brushing it off surfaces, coughing, groaning in disgust. There are many surfaces. But you’re determined.

Under a dripping canopy of tall oaks, I stumbled around a New Jersey cemetery scanning names engraved on headstones. I knew my father was there somewhere, but exactly where was a mystery. No one from the cemetery had returned my calls, the office was deserted, and there wasn’t a soul in sight to ask. There was nothing to do but start at one end and amble up and down the walkways that snaked through the graves.

By the first day of grade twelve, I can’t handle living in this shithole town anymore. Summer: a blur of house parties, handsy boys and men, and sleepless nights. I butt my cigarette against the brown brick façade, march into the guidance counsellor’s office and say, “If I can’t finish first term, I quit.” I graduate in January.

Claremont, California, circa 2005 (or anytime between 1955 and 2008):

My father tells me my mother smiled at something he said today. To mark the occasion, I take this mental snapshot, underexposed, milky black and white. She is silhouetted against the window in front of the herb garden she has let die.

“To tell or not tell?” I have been grappling with this question for years. After looking at it from all angles and analyzing the potential consequences of both options, I have finally concluded that it is best to “tell.” The question has to do with whether I disclose an important family secret, revealed to me by my mother ten years ago, or keep it to myself, which will amount to burying it for good, never to surface again.

As my parents’ only child, I always listened for bits of grown-up news or gossip, especially when they spoke in hushed tones or in “code.” Without siblings to distract me away from the business of the adults, I was often privy to all sorts of dirt. But, whenever I asked a question about something I overheard, my mother shamed me back to childhood with comments like, “Little pitchers have big ears!” or even better, in Italian, “Fatti gli affari tuoi!”

I hated gym and those one-piece blue gym suits. They had the self-contained waistband, the baggy shorts, the snap front, and were a pain to climb into. They made even the most glamorous girls in phys ed look like little blue sausages. A chubby fifteen-year-old, I tried to stay out of that ridiculous blue get-up whenever possible.

Summers lingered, with pancakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch, too. Mom peeled carrots and left them in a Pyrex bowl of water on the kitchen table. I’d grab one for a snack, running through the house and out to the backyard, where the fun happened.

How many Seventeen articles do I need to read to get it right? “The makeup should look natural, like it’s not there. The idea is to enhance, not pronounce.” That’s what the people in the article say.

“El Wacko is snorting coke in the bathroom,” Daniel shouted. He stormed into his parents’ room. I studied my godbrother, round eyes and mouth open, from my seat on the nightstand. My back pressed against rows and rows of vitamins, all promising weight loss, wishing to be anywhere but here.

Dr. Thompson was feeling my breasts. Sitting on the table in his exam room with my gown dropped to my waist, I was embarrassed to have him touch me. I was embarrassed just to be at the appointment. My body developed curves early. In seventh grade, when most girls had flat chests, I wore a C-cup bra and hid in the corner of the locker room to change before and after gym class. By fifteen, my 34D chest was a health concern.

I stared at the bead of blood. A perfect red pearl on my almost-shoulder.

“I’ll get something for that,” said the nurse. “Here, put some pressure on it.” She pressed a cotton ball against my skin, and I held it there with my pointer finger.

I finally flossed my teeth. It was the first time in ten days. I moved about my bathroom with excited anticipation of normal days to come, suddenly aware of the overflowing garbage pail and grime in the cracks of the backsplash. Blood pooled delicately between the enamel of my teeth, reminding me of yet another way I had failed.

I learned about menstruation from sea monkeys when I was eight or nine. Since then, I haven’t given my body much thought. Maybe that time in Sicily, when I flew off my bike and skinned my knee and elbow, leaving a scar. Or perhaps when my legs sprouted hair and everyone in the sixth grade shaved before my mom let me. But now that we’re trying to have a baby, it’s all I can think about.