WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I liked the sensation of running my hand over a wire mesh fence. Liked the feel of the cold metal, the bump of it against my fingertips, the bumps coming faster and harder as I began to run, dragging my hand across it.

Once, I cut myself pretty badly on a raw edge. Anna helped me clean it, and neither of us said a word to our parents about it. We’d handled the situation, we thought. No need to bring them into it. No need for me to get a lecture about being more careful in the future.

The bandage gave it away. Mom had promptly dragged me to the doctor and he’d given me a tetanus booster, which hurt.

That night, she and Dad sat me and Anna down and gave us a lecture about the importance of not keeping things from them. We’d both nodded seriously and sworn we would never do such a thing again. But we knew: the real take-home message was that we should be more careful in the future not to get caught.

That was my initial reaction to Mom’s discovery of the box. That I should have hidden it better. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her on the couch, unable to talk to or even to look at me. And I felt like maybe I hadn’t hidden it to protect Anna. Maybe I’d hidden it to protect myself.