My mother smiles and assures me there's nothing to be afraid of. She never stops smiling. Sometimes it looks like her smile is frozen and it might crack and then shatter into a thousand white shards. "Keep smiling!" she tells me. "And don't sleep with your baseball bat." Does she know about them? I doubt it. But maybe she does and it's just easier to hide her fear behind a smile. Either way, I have to protect her.

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