“Happy birthday,” he says as he hands me a bottle. I don’t take it. “I know what you did,” I say, trying to hold on to the anger, but the words come out as squeaks. I’m a mouse already on the verge of tears. He touches his hand to my face to soothe me. I jerk away, and as I do I think of the line from Lolita, when Humbert finds Lo after so many years: “I’ll die if you touch me.”
