CHAPTER EIGHTBy ten years old I had created a man of great character in my imagined love, John Goff, and by then I wanted more than the fantasies I had created. I recalled picnics and rendezvous in the meadow beyond the stream. On winter days, we lay on our backs near the big brick fireplace in the front room and shared stories and drawings, but those I had fashioned or only dreamed about. During the years that followed the first utterance of his name, I filled fifty pages in a notebook dedicated exclusively to him. The images of the man were well formed and they grew and changed, as did the rhythms of my childhood.
I dreamed we kissed once. I don’t remember the year, but I recall all other aspects of the occasion vividly. It was on the steps at the Archer School just before I boarded the
