the priest used to sit him on his lap and stroke his hair intently and give him garnet sips of wine. He crooned my brother’s name in a velvety voice, reciting it like poetry, and flicked his eyes at my mother as if daring her to stop him. Already I had learned to recognize the ones who hated women, from the way they treated my mother. “Young children need to be touched,” he said, in that voice that meant he hated her and also something else.
