I was twelve when I learned that my parents didn’t just forget me — they bet on me. We were at Union Station, and my mother gave me a quarter and told me to stay by the pillar while they bought tickets. Forty-five minutes later, they were gone. I found out later they had driven past the station, slowed down long enough to see me crying through the glass, and laughed.
My mother shouted that she’d bet my father fifty dollars I couldn’t find my own way home.
