I first met the Morstads the day my family moved into the house next door. The 4-bedroom, 6-bathroom, white brick property June and Jeff had just purchased was the equivalent of a beaten-down shack in comparison to the Morstad Manor, but it was still one of the nicest in town. My parents had worked hard to start up their realty business, and they finally had the house to prove their success. As we were walking through it the first time, my mom pitched it as if I was an interested buyer and she was priming me to make an offer higher than the asking price. "Custom interiors! Spacious basement! 12-foot ceilings! And we're only a few minutes from the ocean. A true dreamhome."

"I'm proud of you, Juney!" My father's voice echoed through the empty house like thunder. It made me laugh at the time.

"Hello!" I hollered, then hollered again, even louder. I wanted my echo to be at the same caliber as my father's.

"Here, bud," he picked me up. He was strong in those days. He was the strongest man on Earth. "You have to roar, like a lion!"

"Like this? Raiiiir!"

"Good! But deeper! From the belly. Go, roooooar!"

I bellowed my roar from as deep into my belly as I thought possible. I threw my hands up as a lion about to attack: the world, my prey, and my father, the mountain I stood upon.

"Perfect, Jamey-boy! You really scared me with that one!"

I remember the pride I felt in that moment. To be the loudest person in the room, it gives you a sense of strength, of power, of self-importance. As we grow older, we're too often taught to silence ourselves, to allow others to assume that role of strength, until simply being, in loudness or in silence, feels too prideful, too self-important. It's a virus that inserts itself into your genome, ultimately becoming part of you, sometimes without you even recognizing that it doesn't belong. I look back on this moment and wonder "Where did it all change?" Was this my peak? Or did that arrive later? Or sooner even? When were the seeds of self-doubt planted? And how did the gardener bury them without me even knowing?

"Will you two stop polluting my house with that noise already and let me show you the rest of it?"

The rooms were small, apparently, but the house made up for that, I was told, with huge living spaces, spacious back and front yards, and a kitchen even a chef couldn't have dreamt up. "It's a perfect entertaining house," said my mother when she described it to people. This was the time in my childhood when she'd stop a stranger at the grocery store to let that person know of her new home: a great entertaining space she'd just purchased with her J&J Realty money. "There's so much seating, really. You know what I think? A house can never have enough seating! People love to sit!"

What a silly pitch. People love to sit. She should have put that on a bench. "J&J Realty. Because people love to sit!" Not that when you purchase a home it comes with the chairs anyways, but June told me once that those who value transparency won't ever make it in the world, and it's a slogan I believe she built her life upon.

"And this will be your room, Jamey."

Because I was small at the time, the room felt bigger than it actually was. In the farthest corner lay my bed already, a hand-me-down crib that had been converted into a toddler bed. The room was made even smaller by a wardrobe that belonged to my maternal grandmother. The wood had recently been stained darker than its original color, and my father and I had gone to the hardware store together to pick out new handles just a few days before. It felt like getting a new piece of furniture, but better because this one already had a type of sentimental pull on you, the type that gives you a rush of happiness whenever you walk into its room. I was proud to own it.

The wall opposite to the door housed a south-facing window. Through it, one saw the backyard of the adjacent home. The scene it painted today was that of a tow-headed little girl. She played on the grass as her mother watched calmly from her swinging chair on the porch. It was so perfectly framed and so remarkably silent, when I think of this memory in my mind, it is like there was no window at all. Instead, merely a photo, a capture in time mounted and hung on my wall for all to see and study and feast on and envy whenever they found themselves in front of it.

"It looks like you've found yourself a friend, little Jamey," said my mother, gesturing to the playing child. "She looks to be about your age, no?"

Across the way, the mother of the girl spoke for the first time, breaking the silence that had once flooded the scene. She called to the girl loudly, her voice amplifying as it bounced between the two buildings, from the brick that made up the walls of her home to the brick of ours and back again. June noticed more than me that she was speaking a language that was not English. I believe she said something to my father about the family not being from here.

My father laughed. He thought it was humorous, and I think their foreignness intrigued him. "Let's go say hi!" Then he turned to me. "Would you like that Jaime?"

"Roar!" was my response. It was the beginning of my lion phase. I had decided to only communicate in lion sounds from that moment on. There was no doubt in my mind that I could keep playing this game for the rest of my life.

June protested weakly but agreed to go nevertheless.

Once decided, there was no hesitation in leaving. We readied ourselves, getting dressed in our boots and our coats then polishing out the rest. My mother grabbing a box of cookies as an offering, the only thing we had had in our kitchen at the time. My father checking the straightness of his tie with his reflection in the curtainless floor-to-ceiling windows that lined our great room. Me, observing dutifully.

They were beautiful, my parents. They never left the house unless they looked perfect. Hair, face, suit, and shoes. The most powerful tool a person holds, my father once told me, is his ability to impress. And the most important impression, my mother added, is the first one.

This, I did not know at the time, would be the most important first impression of my life. I think about it often, in fact. I think about it all: what kind of impression we had made, what we did wrong and what I could have done differently, what things I could have changed. Oh, to what lengths I would go to have the ability to change such things.

My father to my left and my mother to my right, both holding one of my toddler sized hands in their big, godly ones, we walked as one on our mission to impress the neighbors.

The Morstads never had to try to impress us. I was impressed merely standing in front of their door.

The door was taller than ours. In fact, they had two doors, and my father didn't know which one to knock at first. If he chose the left, it was instead the right that was opened moments later. The man who answered was as tall and grand as the door itself, it seemed to me at the time. He stepped into the frame as if he were the door. He filled the space it left behind by his own body, and he did not lower himself upon seeing me, as some did in an effort to be closer to my level.

He did not speak. He did not greet us. He simply adopted a questioning look at my parents. Its purpose, to elicit them into confessing their reason for coming.

"We're your new neighbors." It was my father or my mother. I can't remember anymore. "We're moving into the corner house."

The news did not seem to phase him. He either already knew, or he didn't think it mattered.

"We noticed you have a daughter! Maybe she's near our son's age?"

The man's gaze turned pensive. He must have been deciding if we were worthy of conversation. After a few moments, "Maybe," is all he said.

My parents did not – could not – respond immediately. They stood like statues, stunned by his brevity. I could hear their thoughts. This is not how things are done.

I followed their lead. I dared not speak and instead decided to hide myself behind the leg of my mother. We waited for him to say more, but he just looked back at his. It was a competition. Who will break the silence first?

He did not want to play, I guess. When he realized my parents had nothing else to say, he just closed the door, leaving my parents and, by proxy, I stranded and humiliated on the entryway steps.

"Why do we even bother?" my mother muttered, pushing the unused box of cookies into my chest. My father took her in his arms and consoled her as we made the shameful journey back to our lot. "Such meek people."