When I was in junior high, my mother forbade me to speak to anyone outside our home. So I sometimes went whole days without talking. Muteness was like my superpower. It allowed me to move about unnoticed. It made me invisible.
Of course my mother didn’t mean, Go mute. She meant, Don’t attract Social Services. “Don’t tell anyone what goes on in this house,” she would say to me. “If anyone finds out, they’ll take you away.” She saw danger everywhere and established elaborate rituals to keep threats at bay: nailing windows shut, hiding, checking locks for tampering.
