When I was twenty-two and single, I worked behind the counter at a bakery. Customers would point at pastries in a case, and I would hand them those pastries, my hand sheathed in a thin vinyl glove. Sometimes they pointed at a particular pastry—the biggest cinnamon roll, for instance, or the darkest croissant—and I would have to move my arm slowly until I reached the right one.

When I went home my apartment was empty, except for two cats who avoided me. One of them hid under my bed and the other one cried until I let him outside. I slept alone every night for over a year.

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