This space differs from the typical waiting room because not one of my fellow patients, struggling to make themselves comfortable in these chairs, is here for a regular checkup. We are all here because another doctor has seen something disturbing, something that has to be investigated.

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In Alabama, October was the first month that you could trust cooler weather was coming to stay. Occasionally, I could even wear a sweater in the morning, and although it was wrapped around my waist by afternoon, the heat was not overbearing. Finally, at night, I could snuggle under a sheet and fall asleep. To make a good thing even better, the month began with my father’s birthday and ended with Halloween. There was nothing bad about October in my eyes.

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: For a child in small-town Alabama, books provided solace in summers without friends and activities.

“I can certainly use these for Poetry Month,” I’ll say to no one in particular, as if strangers might look askance at a person buying five books of poetry but not at a woman talking to herself.