I’m sixty-three now, my skin a roadmap of old battles — Vietnam, the open road, and the kind of rough living you don’t brag about. I thought I’d seen the worst people could do. But nothing in my past prepared me for what happened in the cereal aisle of Walmart that afternoon.
I was comparing oatmeal brands when a small shape darted toward me. A little girl — maybe six — slammed into my side and wrapped both arms around mine, her tiny fingers trembling against my tattooed skin.
