Summer of Salt

by Katrina Leno

As if out of a fairy tale, nobody asked: What was my sister wearing the night she was raped? How much had my sister had to drink the night she was raped? How many guys had my sister previously had sex with? Because—again, out of a fairy tale—they realized that none of those things mattered. Because there was nothing in a girl’s history that might negate her right to choose what happens to her body.

The dead loved promises; the living loved promising.