What happened next: she raised her arm, a blue satin– covered arm, to strike me. Just one of a thousand times that she did. She raised her arm to strike me and I had this sudden thought, a new thought: I am bigger than she is. Not taller, no, but wider, and certainly heavier. Maybe stronger. I had this thought and then she struck, and I caught her arm in my hands. I caught her arm in my hands, and then I pushed, hard, and she fell backward into her closet with a thump and a crack that might have been her head against the dresser, and a gasp that might have been her response to the pain. She fell backward into her closet, and I shut the door. I did this without thinking: I shut the door, slammed it, and then I turned the key. It was an old-fashioned closet door, with an iron key that was always in the lock and never used. My mother found it charming. I didn’t know if the key worked, but I turned it anyway, and pulled it out of the lock, and then I stepped back, clutching the thing to my chest as if she could somehow suck it out of my hands and back through the door.

“Olivia,” my mother said. “Let me out.” I heard her scrabbling, trying to open the door. But it would not open. There was no handle on that side.

“No,” I said.

“You’re going to have to let me out eventually,” she said. “Better do it now.”

“You brought this on yourself,” I said.

“I hurt my head,” my mother said. Her voice sounded far away.

I told you, already, what happens when I am given any amount of power. I turned on my heel and walked out of the room.

It is possible that I should not be forgiven for this.

In the kitchen, thrilled and raving, I looked for the matches. They weren’t in their usual place. I began opening drawers at random, picking up knives and cheese graters and dish towels and putting them down again. I looked in the cupboards, under the sink. I looked in the freezer, where things are found in films.

Finally, I saw the battered matchbox, sitting next to the telephone. (What had my mother been doing? Talking to creditors, lighting them up one by one?) I stood in the middle of the kitchen, opened the box, and lit a match. I was for a moment transfixed by the fire, the way it ate the stem so purposefully, and as a reward I let it burn me a little. Then I shook the match and dropped it onto the tiles. I lit another. This one gave a little flare of green. I could hold it to anything—the roll of paper towels, the hanging apron, the curtains—and it would be over. I would walk out the door. She would not hit me again.