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taken it out, but it had still clearly been used.
    â€œPick it up,” Daddy ordered.
    I reached down and grasped its cotton body. I didn’t really want to touch it with my bare hands, but Daddy was blocking the toilet paper.
    â€œWhere did you get that?” he demanded.
    â€œAt school,” I said. “Some kids—”
    â€œWhat did I tell you about tampons?”
    â€œThat they’re for married ladies.”
    â€œAre you married?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    He looked at me for a second, then said, “Follow me.” In the kitchen, he opened the cupboard under the sink so I could throw the tampon away. “Now take the trash out,” he said, and I did, and when I got back to the house, the door was locked. I went around to the front, but it was the same thing. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered.
    It was hard to know what to do then. I checked the car doors, but they were locked, too. I thought about going over and ringing the Vuosos’ doorbell, but I worried that somehow, if they knew that my father had locked me out, they would fire me.
    In the end, I decided to take a walk to the pool. I remembered that there was a pay phone just outside the locker rooms, and I used it to call my mother collect. She accepted the charges, then asked what the hell was going on down there.
    â€œI’m locked out,” I said, and I started to cry.
    â€œWell,” she said, “your father just called and said you ran away.”
    â€œI didn’t run away,” I told her. “He locked me out, and I went to the pay phone to call you.”
    â€œWhere’s the pay phone?” she asked.
    â€œAt the pool.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t be calling me,” she said. “You should be calling your father. He has no idea where you are.”
    â€œBut he locked me out!”
    â€œListen to me, Jasira. You and I both know your father has problems. He overreacts. That means you have to adjust your behavior to take that into account. If he locks you out, you’re just going to have to wait a while until he lets you back in. Do you understand me? I mean, I just can’t be getting these phone calls all the time. What’s the point of you even living there if I have to fix everything?”
    â€œI don’t want to live here. I want to come home.”
    â€œYou haven’t given it enough of a chance.”
    â€œI have,” I said. “I gave it a big chance.”
    â€œWhat you need to ask yourself in a situation like this,” she said, “is, Why did Daddy lock me out? Have you asked yourself that?”
    â€œYes,” I lied.
    â€œReally? Have you really?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œBecause if Daddy tells you that you shouldn’t be wearing tampons, and then you wear tampons, what do you think is going to happen?”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with wearing tampons?” I said.
    â€œWell,” she said, “that’s not really the question, is it? The question is, What’s wrong with wearing tampons when Daddy explicitly told you not to? Because there’s definitely something wrong with that. Just like there’s something wrong with shaving when your mother tells you not to.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œOr asking someone else to shave you,” she said.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said.
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œHang up now and call Daddy. He’ll come and get you.”
    I hung up, but I didn’t call Daddy. Instead, I stood there in the passageway between the men’s and women’s locker rooms, pretending this was my house. The soda machine next to the pay phone hummed like a refrigerator. The smell of chlorine reminded me of the Comet I used to scrub my sink.
    On the walk home, I fantasized that something terrible would happen to me. That my body would be found after a long search, and that my