there’s a hole caving open in my chest when i tell my grandmother about the fan

when we lived with him,

i woke up very early each day.

in the mornings, to pass the time,

since i was afraid of being alone with

him when no one else was awake,

i would read alone in my bed for hours

until someone else woke up, too.

every morning, while it was just him and

i awake in the house, he would watch the news

and eat cornflakes and drink orange juice and

read the newspaper. i was hungry, of course, at this

hour—i was a growing child—but i wouldn’t stir from my bed

except to pick up a book and to

turn a page

and another

and so on, until someone else woke.

when he got up from the table, though, i would hold my breath. he was

three rooms and a hall away, but i could hear him,

somehow. i would hold my breath. if i heard

the clinking of his silverware to his bowl, he was

taking his dishes to the sink. if not, he was headed straight

for the bathroom. either way, he would

inevitably come back down the hall,

flip-flops sounding strangely across

the wooden floor in his slow, steady gait.

i would have slipped my book under my blankets and

turned slightly onto my side by the time he reached the hall,

my movements silent in practiced ease. my eyes would have

been closed not even a second later, my breaths

carefully evened out into those mimicking sleep.

as he moved down the hall towards our room,

the room with my siblings and i, i would clench a hand into

a fist beneath my blankets, along the

spine of my book beside me, and i would focus

on the

sound

of the

whirring

fan

above

our

heads,

even as he came closer.

he would stand at the open doorway to our room and

stand

there

for

i would keep breathing, just the same, just as evenly, just as

methodically as i always did in these moments.

sometimes i still wake up

paralyzed

by the

sound

of the

whirring

fan

above

head,