He walked out.
I stood at the window and watched his car disappear around the corner.
I didn’t know that I had just watched the end of my childhood.
After my father left, my mother began covering the mirrors.
First, she draped a towel over the bathroom mirror.
Then she covered the full-length mirror in her bedroom with an old white sheet.
Eventually, she stopped looking at reflective windows when we went shopping.
She no longer wanted to attend school events or family gatherings.
If I asked her to come somewhere with me, she found an excuse.
“People stare, Heidi.”
“Let them.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I don’t want you to spend your life defending me.”
I was too young to understand that she wasn’t asking me to defend her.
She was asking for permission to disappear.
I refused to give it to her.
