“‘This is Diana—our family dropout,’ my mother said for the fifteenth Thanksgiving in a row, but when my sister’s new husband reached across the table to shake my hand, his grip locked, his face went still, and the room forgot how to laugh before he said the two words nobody there was prepared to hear”

was right, but I wasn’t sure she was wrong.

I got back to my apartment past midnight. I made tea and sat at the kitchen table in the specific stillness that follows a very long day.

I opened a drawer and took out a letter my mother had written me in June of 2010 after I left UVA, three pages long. I’ve kept it for 15 years because I’ve never been sure continue reading …