They slapped me for buying my daughter a birthday doll — and in the middle of aisle nine, i finally chose who i was going to be The first hit didn’t ring; it flashed the world white. Emma’s sneakers squeaked on the polished tile, the freezers sighed cold air, and my mother’s wedding ring left a constellation of ice on my cheek before heat flooded in. Two weeks to my little girl’s seventh birthday. I’d walked to work for months, skipped lunches I pretended I wasn’t hungry for, slid fives into an