The little boy with dark curls knows how to make himself invisible.

One rainy day, with his mother shut in her room, he occupies himself bouncing a ball against the living room wall. He hears his mother’s rhythmic prayers from behind her closed door, and he loses himself in her voice and the soft thud of the rubber ball against the wall. Startled when he hears the front door slam, he misses the ball and watches it bounce in slow motion as it knocks down a small vase full of fake flowers that his mother keeps on the end table.

Too late to disappear.

Dammit. I’ve told you a million times not to play in the house. You’re going to pay for that, boy, the man yells as he loosens his belt and wraps it a couple times around his hand to get a tight grip.

The mother runs out of her room, pleading.

The boy takes the first blow standing up and then falls to the ground, hoping playing dead will make the man stop.

But he forgets to cover his head, and the buckle strikes hair and skin and bone.