turned, tumbled me, a plastic figurine like the princess toys I played with in the bathtub as a girl: Ariel and Aurora, Jasmine and Belle. My mother kept them in a basket under the sink. They were immobile, their arms and legs bent in stiff postures, their feet covered by skirts and molded to thick pedestals. But I had loved them, had gifted them stories beyond true love’s kiss and happily ever after, stories of adventure, journeys of their own. And when danger befell them, when bad men threatened harm, I had given my princesses the power to fight.
