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The Changeling As a young girl vying for my father's attention, I invented a game that made him look up from his reading and shake his head as if both baffled and amused. In my brother's closet, I'd change into his dungarees—the rough material molding me into boy shape; hide my long hair under an army helmet he'd been given by Father, and emerge transformed into the legendary Che of grown-up talk. Strutting around the room, I'd tell of life in the mountains, of carnage and rivers of blood, and of manly feasts with rum and music to celebrate victories para la libertad. He would listen with a smile to my tales of battles and brotherhood until Mother called us to dinner. She was not amused by my transformation^, sternly forbidding me from sitting down with them as a man. She'd order me back to the dark cubicle that smelled of adventure, to shed my costume, to braid my hair furiously with blind hands, and to return invisible, as myself, to the real world of her kitchen. 38 ...

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