When I was writing my young-adult short-story collection, Killing Miss Kitty and Other Sins, I couldn’t quite decide whether I was writing memoir or fiction. Sometimes what I wrote was authentically memoir, but the longer, more shaped pieces tended toward fiction. Because I had to decide to go one way or the other, I chose to present the longer short stories as fiction and to take the authentically memoir pieces out for another collection.

I have several other projects I need to complete before I can return to the memoir pieces to decide exactly what to do with them, but in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to share them. So I’m putting them in here, one at a time.

5. The Playground

I slept in a yellow crib. I would sleep in it until I was seven. Mommy said there was plenty of space for me in the crib, but not enough space for a bigger bed in the tiny bedroom Willis and I shared. And I didn’t mind. The railings kept the rest of the world out; they didn’t keep me in. I could climb out any time I liked. Besides, I knew with every ounce of my being, knew without the words ever once being spoken, that Mommy wanted me to stay little.