My parents were going out to dinner when I was six or so, and before they left, I felt instantly desperate and went to the bathroom and grabbed my mom’s lipstick and put red dots all over my body and then begged them not to go. “I have chicken pox, you can’t leave,” I said. I remember they both laughed and laughed and then they left. And I cried and couldn’t stop. They laughed at me like I was a wacky child pulling a wacky stunt: kids say the darnedest things, etc. But I think about that night all the time, that little kid desperate for someone to love her, take care of her, spend any time at
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