Age 4: Standing in line at the post office with my mother, I have a lollipop from the bank drive-thru. The boy behind me is maybe three, and I see him staring at my lollipop, on the verge of tears. I turn so he can see it better, and I take a huge, purple-tongued lick. He begins to scream, and his mother can’t figure out why. I’m the only one who knows. It’s the first deliberately cruel thing I remember doing. It might also be the model for all my future relationships with men, but this is beside the point.
—The Borrower, Rebecca Makkai
