“She left for Juilliard the day after Labor Day. I drove her to the airport. She kissed me good-bye. She told me that she loved me more than life itself. Then she stepped through security.She never came back.”

“It's my turn to see you through,' she whispers, coming back to me and wrapping me in her blanket as I lose my shit all over again. She holds me until I recover my Y chromosome.”

“She said if she couldn't play, she had nothing left. What about me?”

“She looks at me, square in the eye. Taking aim. And then she pulls the trigger. “Because I hated you.”The wind, the noise, it all just goes quiet for a second, and I’m left with a dull ringing in my ear, like after a show, like after a heart monitor goes to flatline.“Hated me? Why?”“You made me stay.” She says it quietly, and it almost gets lost in the wind and the traffic and I’m not sure I heard her. But then she repeats it louder this time. “You made me stay!”And there it is. A hollow blown through my heart, confirming what some part of me has always known.She knows.”

“She didn't care that people called her a bitch. 'It's just another word for feminist,' she told me with pride.”

“I do have a point to all this,” she continues. “There are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Some of them are related to you. Some of them are not. But we’re all your family.” She stops now. Leans over me so that the wisps of her hair tickle my face. She kisses me on the forehead. “You still have a family,” she whispers.”

“There are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Some of them are related to you. Some of them are not. But we're all your family.'"She stops now. Leans over me so that the wisps of her hair tickle my face. She kisses me on the forehead. 'You still have a family,' she whispers.”