I have to pretend I lost my field hockey stick, because I know my mother will hit me with it all summer if I bring it home. But she’ll just use the carpet-sweeper pole instead. She’ll make me take off all my clothes and lie on the floor and open my legs and arms and let her hit me with the sweeping brush in my private parts. She makes me say, “I am nothing,” over and over and if I don’t, she won’t stop stomping on me.
