My father had see-through skin. My mother and four older brothers looked through him because of this, as if he were made of air.

When I told my father he was see-through he said I should keep it just between us, that my mother wouldn’t understand. Then he looked at me without that usual sadness in his eyes. I peeked through his chest and saw his heart beating just for me.

My father’s skin started acting up after my mother wanted him to get a real job and made him quit being an extra in the movies. In a picture of him on a film set he rides a donkey with big ears like his. His shoulders are slouched forward the way they were when my mother looked through him to her reflection in the mirror, or to her new sequin dress, or to Wheel of…