In the summer of 1980, when I was ten years old, a stranger sneaked through our trailer’s unlocked side door at 2 AM. He lifted a few gold-plated necklaces from my mother’s wooden jewelry box, then entered my bedroom. When I woke, the man pulled his hands out of my underwear.
I sat up and watched as he adjusted himself awkwardly, almost apologetically, in the chair he’d dragged from the kitchen to my bedside. His dark hair was illuminated by moonlight streaming through the windows. His wide eyes appeared lost. In a precocious act of self-preservation, I talked him into leaving my bedroom.
