“Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds out that I did hear. She said, "I won't be a mom anymore." It gutted me pretty badly.”

“This is so cool," I said loudly as Dad walked away. "Have you met the tattoo artist? Is he hot?" "He's a she," Mom said. "Is she hot? Cause I'm still young, you know. My sexual identity isnt fully formed." "Your father can't hear you anymore, Maya." Mom sighed.”

“I want to know about my mom. And other stuff. I want to know the whole story, good or bad.”“Me, too,” said Gazzy. “I want to find my parents so I can tell’m what total scuzzes they are. Like, ‘Hi, mom and dad, you’re such scum!”

“I picked up a lot of my arguing-with-Mom techniques from Mimsy. She always says if you state the facts, Mom won't argue with you. And it's true. I used this approach once when I was little, after I got home from a visit with Mimsy. I wanted to eat a chocolate bar for a snack but mom wanted me to have an apple. I refused, saying I have never had a bad candy bar but have had plenty of bad apples. Mom relented and let me have my chocolate. But not before saying, "All right. No bad apples for the bad apple." It was still worth it.”

“Mom, mom, mom, mom! A yowl rose from my gut, my bowels, my womb, raw as a birth cry but with no hope in it, a maddening howl, a roar, the water a wailing wall shattering around me. Unsyllabled, thoughtless, the cry rose from the oldest cells in my body. I hadn't known grief could be so primal, so crude. The violence shook me. When it stopped, I fell to my knees in the shower, and the water called to the water in me; I wanted to melt, to run down the drain and under the city to the creek and then to the river thirty miles away. Mom, mom, mom, mom!”

“This is my truth. Mom, she sees the future. Me, I can’t look beyond the past. I wish I could.”