Living at the seaside meant wonder and danger arrived frequently on the same wind, tugging at me from the horizon. Like an eager kite, I was constantly drawn to danger. The first time I disobeyed my father and walked into the sea alone, I was four years old. The afternoon heat was perishing. My father had already left for work, and my pregnant mother was sweating somewhere out of sight, bathing my baby brother in the same red plastic basin she’d use to hand-wash our clothes, or bending over to feed her own baby sister, her father’s newest newborn, who she’d delivered from his scared teenage
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