A girl my age passes a few feet away; she and I walk in different worlds. She does not lower her eyes to look upon me, slumped in this doorway hoping that no one will notice me, kick me, or curse at me because I have sinned in that way nearly impossible to reverse: I exist. I offend them. I haven’t got the pretty dress and lavender-trimmed bonnet of that girl. Did I ever have anything so nice? I almost remember laces and ruffles, tucked now into the corners of my memory beneath years of quiet suffering and hard work.