this instinctive and immediate fear for our safety had set in, the need to glance over our backs when crossing an empty parking lot, to check beneath our cars, to bristle when a strange man walked behind us too closely, to startle when he stopped us to ask the time. The realization that this fear was particular to us came later, that, unlike the boys with whom we played in cul-de-sacs when we were little, we would never outgrow the cautionary tales. There would forever be strangers offering us candy.
