Quotes from Danielle Henderson

Throughout the eighties, kidnapping was deployed as an empty threat by overworked, exhausted parents who wanted to keep us close enough to elude Child Protective Services but far enough away to not ever have to see, hear, or smell anything we were playing with.

It was nice to be invited to eat with another family. The Garretts didn't have a dad either, but I never asked why. I liked the feeling of not having to explain that part of myself to someone else and thought Erin might feel the same way.

I'd never met him, so I never missed him.

Mom was always getting it half right—she came to my rescue when I needed it but still found a way to blame me for needing to be rescued in the first place.

I craved my mom, even when she was standing right next to me. With her hand in mine and my head resting on her hip, I wondered what I could do to make her feel as light as she seemed to be with everyone else. I wanted her to gently touch my arm and laugh at my knock-knock jokes the way she did when strangers said anything at all. What would it feel like to have my mom all to myself?

My uncle and I had a fairly compact "Take My Wife" routine for two people who were not married and couldn't stand the sight of each other.

For most people, summer wasn't in full swing until the straps of your bathing suit left grill marks on your shoulders, or you could peel long strips of blistered skin from your back like a sheet of loose-leaf paper. For me, a fair-skinned person with freckles, a hearty sunburn was my way of saying to people, Look, I've been outside this summer, at least once. Please don't ask me to do this again.

Looking at them now, I realized love wasn't something you could perform but something you felt together.

They're eating the brains." He laughed with his whole body; I could feel him bouncing around on the end of the couch. Watching Faces of Death was a sport for him; who knew how many times he'd seen it. His joy was perverse; as much as I feared his anger, his happiness in the face of destruction made me want to crawl out of my skin.

Warwick took on a sheen of impermanence. I could go anywhere, be anyone. I didn't want to be like my mom, to give my life over to men. I couldn't conceive of a life that revolved around or even involved men.

At eight years old, I already felt the imbalance of a world that never wanted me to forget that I had nothing.

A cold feeling crept through my body and settled on my skin in a cool sweat as I realized: the person I counted on most in the world was just as powerless as I was.