I was not stupid ordinarily, and so I blame my behavior on my desire to impress Jeff Stallings. Desperately, I reached out and tried to retrieve my money from my mother’s hand. She clenched a fist around the bill, looked me in my eyes, and began to laugh. I had gotten away with one impulsive moment of impertinence, but . . . Anger is airborne. It can be inhaled, and once it enters a body it becomes a tenacious blob of blues and browns with tiny speckles of red. It settles heavy in the lungs, making breathing ever so difficult. . . . I had been infected with anger. “Give it back, Mama,” I
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