Excerpt
Prologue I did not grow up in my brothers shadow. I grew up in his light. I have been Johns sister since the very beginning. He was not yet four when I was born, but he claims to remember the event. He remembers naming me. He tells the story of my naming as if that morning still shimmers, a perfect mirage, in his memory. Our father dropped John off at an elderly neighbors house on the afternoon before I was born. John says it was terrible to have been left behind, that the woman was strange and her house dusty, that he feared our parents would not return for him. He says he thought about me a great deal, that he imagined me just as I turned out to be.
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Years later, after his first break, after dropping out of college and being locked down in a psychiatric hospital, after one terrible round of medications after another, after stabilizing briefly and then secretly flushing his meds, after our mother and father started saying things like, Well, what do we do? Im honestly asking, what are our options here? For gods sake, what do you think we should do?” at night, when they thought they were alone, when they thought I was in bed, I thought about how John used to spread his wings for me. I was out of high school, taking classes at a community college, working at a coffee shop, waiting for John to get well so I could figure out what to do with myself, when John started talking about the two of us making a break for it.
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