MEGAN STAFFEL

There was a man when I was fourteen who came to our house to dig out a ditch. I was at the age when boredom was as thick as the mud at the bottom of the river and everything--my mother, my father, the road, the house, the barn, all the trees I used to climb--was furniture to move through and nothing more. I was adept. I knew my mother's moods, my father's habits; I knew the deep spots in the river, the path to the blackberries; I could get in and out of my bedroom by way of the window and wherever I walked I could feel how the air moved and how the sounds brushed against my skin.