My family locked me in the basement to give birth. Days later, they returned to find a dark red liquid seeping from the door. As my mother screamed, a voice whispered behind her, “Looking for me?”

like a battlefield than a place of nourishment. At the head, my father, Walter, wielded the evening newspaper as a physical barrier, his eyes scanning financial columns to avoid making eye contact with his eldest daughter. Across from him sat my mother, Eleanor, her lips perpetually curved into a tight, practiced smile—the specific expression she usually continue reading …