But I remained standoffish because everything you and I experienced at home ran counter to how Papa presented himself to the world, and around them, I had to either silence myself and play a role to sustain Papa’s performance or risk sounding like a conspiracy theorist to people who had seen nothing but his generosity and kindness. Every time I performed normalcy and denied my reality, I fractured myself; every time I spoke my truth to people who denied it, I fractured myself. Eventually, I had to distance myself to preserve myself.
