My earliest memory of my biological mother wasn’t really a memory at all. It was my father’s voice, years later, careful and controlled, like he’d rehearsed the words so they wouldn’t slice me open. “She said this life wasn’t enough for her,” he told me one evening when I was finally old enough to ask the question that always lived behind my ribs. “She said she deserved better. I think she wanted to take you… but her boyfriend didn’t want to raise another man’s child.” He paused there, the way people do when they’re trying to keep their anger from...
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