There’s a picture of me in the operating room, moments after being born, and my dad—and his beard—are there. His beard was present for most of my childhood, such that every picture I ever drew of him had that furry line. It carried so much weight in my consciousness that I didn’t trust clean-shaven men, famously going into shrieking convulsions as Mom tried to put me in a pool with a teenage swim teacher. No beard? No freaking way.

Then one weekend, my parents went to Vegas to renew their vows. My sister and I ran for the door when they got back, and left skid-marks as we tried to stop our slide into the arms of this alien. It had smooth cheeks and a big shiny chin and naked lips, and the more we cried, the more its face twisted. It looked at our mother and said, “This is your fault.” She explained that Daddy shaved for her, that it really was him underneath all that skin.

He never grew the beard again, and I learned to swim.