PART 3   I stared at the hospital bracelet in the lunchbox until the letters of my own name blurred.

People like Diane rarely surrender all at once. But she stopped calling him “that man.”

It was a beginning.

The next problem was the duplex.

We really had rented it. There was no hidden deed, no secret mansion, no movie ending where my mother owned half the block.

The landlord, Mr. Kaplan, was kind but firm. Mom’s lease ended in December. I could not continue reading …