Read Dwarf: A Memoir for Free Online

let me near the basement
     staircase unless Dad was with me. The stairs, easily manageable for my parents, remained
     a steep,dangerous slope to me. I was scolded each time I approached them on my own and had
     fallen down them too many times to count. It gave Mom nightmares, but their threats
     never stopped me. They made me more determined to find a way— my way—to conquer them.
     One day I wouldn’t have to sink down to the floor and descend the stairs on my behind.
     One day, Bruiser wouldn’t need to protect me with a well-meaning shove away from them.
     I’d be able to do it on my own.
    “I’m off,” Mom announced, coming down to the basement to meet us. It was just before
     seven p.m., and her night shift was about to start. I’d see her again at five in the
     morning when Dad would bring me to her at the hospital and then leave for Norton Company.
     She gave me a big hug and a kiss, lifting me off the cellar floor and then placing
     me back down. She smelled of White Shoulders perfume and Suave shampoo.
    “See you in the morning, honey bunny,” she said to me before she hugged Dad, squeezed
     Bruiser’s ears, and went outside and got into her Pontiac Bonneville (we called her
     Bonnie). The heart ring glistened on her finger.
    Back upstairs, Dad relaxed with his drink while the Pioneer system played its usual
     tunes. With a Cabbage Patch doll tucked tightly under my arm, I snuck into Mom’s bedroom.
     Then I pulled out the bottom drawers of her dresser to make a ladder and climbed to
     the top of her bureau. From up on my perch, I flipped open her glittery gold jewelry
     box to reveal her long, beaded necklaces. My arms were too short to fasten a regular
     one around my neck, but I could whip the beads over my head to put them on. I entertained
     myself until bedtime with a solo fashion show.
    “Pay attention to your
own
cart,” I said into the mirror, imitating my mom with a big smile.
    On other afternoons, when the
Fiddler on the Roof
record wasreturned to its sleeve, it was my turn to play music in the living room. Of all my
     tapes, Cyndi Lauper was my favorite. Ruby, my imaginary friend (named after my mom’s
     jewels), loved music just as much as I did.
    “Let’s play Cyndi,” Ruby would suggest. “Let’s dance.”
    Of course, I couldn’t reach the stereo buttons, but there were ways around this.
    Though my feet were tiny, I knew that it would be too much of a gamble to stand on
     top of the pile of records— I imagined them smashing into tiny, jagged pieces under
     my weight, so I didn’t take the chance. Instead, I stood atop our extra-large lobster
     pot and reached carefully to work the buttons of the cassette player. Balancing on
     my makeshift stool, I envisioned Cyndi coming to my eighth birthday party, surprising
     my friends.
    I had lots of friends— real ones— but my closest friend was Katie Duso. She had brown
     hair like me, a lisp, and wide-set, oblong brown eyes. Katie was more of a tomboy
     than a girly girl, and we got along well. She helped me reach the art supplies at
     school and walked beside me like a bodyguard in the hallway so I wouldn’t get trampled.
    My half brother, Nicolas (from my dad’s first marriage), didn’t need a bodyguard.
     He could reach everything he wanted, including Dad’s system. He didn’t need to slide
     down the stairs when he visited on weekends. He could run down them and back up again
     in a flash. Nicolas had a full head of curly brown hair, small freckles across the
     bridge of his nose, and a gap between his two front teeth. He was an athletic kid,
     two years older than me, and I watched him accomplish everyday tasks with ease. It
     never dawned on me that things were difficult for me and easy for Nick because I was
     handicapped and he was not.
    Nick never treated me like I was different, either. Togetherwe’d park ourselves in front of the TV and watch WWF and then reenact the tag team
     matches with our pillows. The typical