The first pair of shoes I remember: crimson leather mary janes, with an extra strap down the middle. I knelt in front of the open box on the dining room floor. As the sun streamed through the bay window, I lifted one onto my chair. The chair I sat in to eat every meal. The chair my father leaned me over to administer abrupt, stinging spankings. My chair. I looked at the perfect red shoe. I could smell it. So I leaned closer, inhaled fully, got a lungful, a headful of visions: stories yet untold, worlds undiscovered. My heart swelled.
