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

like I still had a name.”

That was when I broke again.

Not from shock this time.

From love.

My mother had understood that hunger is not always in the stomach.

Sometimes people are starving to be addressed with dignity.

The night before I flew back to Seattle, Walter and I sat on the porch.

The duplex was mostly empty now. Boxes lined the hallway. The kitchen continue reading …