After eleven years in which she only had sporadic contact with one cousin – Kelsey, the only family member who knew she was trans – Carmen is suddenly surrounded by them. Old wounds, never addressed, are torn open. But, at the same time, former relationships, cut off without warning, are given an opportunity for healing and rebirth. With Kelsey, who is caught in an abusive relationship; with Innie, who is trying to find a way out of Buttonwillow; with Joaquim (“Ximo”), the younger brother she hadn’t seen since he was fourteen.

Carmen is appointed as temporary conservator for padre, but as a result of the application process she discovers that her mother, who abandoned the family twenty-one years before, is living in Denver under a new name, and with a new husband. When Carmen speaks with Abuela about the circumstances of her Mom’s disappearance while they are in padre’s hospital room, he begins to weep.

I sit here, staring at those two words, wondering what to make of them. “Dear” sounds so impersonal. I write it all the time – to friends, or to donors, or to colleagues. But I can’t say more. I can’t say, “My dear,” much less, “my dearest.” I don’t have the right.

And “Carmen!” The tough young woman I spoke to on the phone sounds nothing like the frightened little boy I remember so well. The one who has haunted my dreams for over twenty years – you and Ximo both. There must be such a story in your name! But I don’t have the right to even ask for it, because it’s a story I should have known. I should have been there for it.

But a letter must start somehow. So, “Dear Carmen” it is, and I’m sorry I can’t do better. I was born Kathleen Marie Parker, though I’ve been called “Kathy Morales” and these days I go by Kate Doody. Once, you called me “Momma.” I’ve forfeited that, too.

You must have wondered, all those years – you and your brother both – why I left. It wasn’t you. Either of you. No, I wasn’t prepared to be a mother, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I was completely overwhelmed by it. But honestly, I loved you both to pieces. I just came to the conclusion, in the end, that both of you, and Dom, and me, and even your padre, would be better off if I left.

There’s no excuse, Carmen. Don’t think I’m trying to make one. But I thought I owed you an explanation at least, for whatever it might be worth – especially after I so completely panicked when you called me out of the blue. So here’s my story. I hope that maybe, somehow, it will help you understand.

I was born in San Francisco in the early 1970s. I hear it’s different today, but back when I was growing up it was a magical place, all hills and sunlight and sparkling water in every direction. It was great food and gay pride and wild parties. Metallica at Candlestick Park and U2 at the Cow Palace. It was Joe Montana and the Niners.

My father was world-famous – honest-to-God! He played first violin for the San Francisco Symphony when they opened in the Davies Hall. That’s where he met my mother, which was a bit of a scandal, since he was twenty years older! They loved me and they spoiled me – Daddy most of all. I got to travel with him on one of his tours, when I was twelve. That’s when I fell in love with Paris, and with French. I dove into it in high school and was fluent before I finished my Sophomore year.

When it was time for college, though, I didn’t want to get a boring degree in something practical. I was crazy about fashion design, and much as I wanted to go to Paris and study there, Mom and Dad decided they wanted to keep a closer eye on me. I didn’t mind too much, because we lived in San Francisco and the California College of Arts and Crafts was right there. They call it the College of the Arts, these days.

CCAC is where I met the best friend anyone ever had. How can I even explain Brittany? I can tell you she was fun, and exciting, and kind, and outgoing, and all of those things are true. But those are just words, after all. They can’t begin to describe what she meant to me. What we meant to each other.

My God, we had a great time together – I probably would have gotten into less trouble if my parents had packed me off to Paris! We’d go to the clubs downtown and dance until 2 in the morning, then get up at dawn and find more trouble to get into. It was boys, half the time. I hope that doesn’t seem scandalous. But we were young and stupid and it felt like the world would always be ours for the taking.

Imagine riding on the back of a Harley as it cruises down Lombard Street in a fog so deep you barely have time to see the curves ahead, arms wrapped deathly tight around the guy who’s trying to hold it together and keep us from going over the edge! Yep, that was me – and Brittany was there, right beside me, on another bike, with another guy. Who? I don’t remember. I don’t remember any of the guys. Just Brittany.

Going up to the wine country in an old VW bus. Six of us. Too young to drink, sure, but a smile and a shimmy could take care of that! Brittany was there with me as we drove from one tasting room to the next. Laughing, telling jokes. And she was there, holding me, when I had too much and lost my cookies in back of an iHop at 4:00 am.

We had years of it, and it was glorious. Me and Brittany against the world! The best years of my life, and I thought they’d never end.

We were three years into the program when she finally fell for a guy so hard she couldn’t just walk away. She’d gone home for Thanksgiving, and came back raving about this hunk she’d met at a party. Couldn’t stop talking about him. We all knew she was serious, because she stopped going out with other guys even though he wasn’t around.

She mostly went home to see him, since that’s where he worked. She teased me, saying she didn’t want to let me get my hooks into him. So I beat her with the big, fluffy pillows she had on her bed, and told her not to be stupid. She was my best friend in all the world and nothing would ever come between us.

It was February when I finally met him. February 15, because he’d come out to spend Valentine’s Day with Brittany. We got together for breakfast at a cafe in the North End, facing the water. It was the kind of day that sticks in your mind, years later – the air so clear you could make out the people under the hang gliders across the bay, flying around Mount Tam. A little bit of breeze to ruffle the water and create a few white-tops for color; the sky a medium blue so deep, so pure, that the red-gold of the bridge popped and gleamed.

Brittany had said her guy wasn’t like anyone we knew, and she was right. Handsome, well-built, great smile. Yeah, check, check, and check. We knew lots of guys like that. But he was so self-assured. He had no use for college; knew he didn’t need it. He’d gone to Fresno to work in construction, but in just three years he was putting together development deals worth heaps of money! He was charming, too. Brittany was so in love with him, and I could see why.

Because, from the first time I saw him, so was I.

And that’s the core truth in all this, Carmen. The one that’s hardest to write, because I know it will be the one that’s most likely to hurt you. But I fell in love with Fernando Morales the day I met him at that cafe in Little Italy, as we sat in the sunshine and talked and laughed and ate our gelato. We three, together. Me, and my Brittany, and the man she loved.

I made a joke about it, months later, when I couldn’t completely hide how I felt. Asked if he had a brother he could spare, maybe. He laughed – he had a wonderful laugh – and said he had more brothers than he knew what to do with, and had worked very hard to get away from them all.

At the very end of the summer, just before classes were going to start, I went out to Fresno for a week to stay with Brittany at her parent’s big ranch house. Fernando asked us both to go to a party a friend was hosting. He said one of his brothers would be there.

That’s when I met your father. He looked a lot like Fernando, as you know, and he seemed smart, though he was kind of tongue-tied. I guess we were both nervous. Me, because I was so conflicted about being in love with my best friend’s guy, and him . . . well, I don’t know why he was. But he was. I mean, sure, okay. I know I was a good-looking girl, back then. But your father had known plenty of girls. Neither of us were virgins, even though he was three years younger than me.

We both had a lot to drink, and one thing led to another. He was staying with Fernando for the summer while he worked in construction; he had a tiny room in the apartment and the walls were embarrassingly thin.

I won’t say it was bad, but I woke up in the morning feeling cheap. I’d never gone to bed with a guy while thinking about someone else – much less the brother who was just on the other side of an uninsulated wall. I was polite – at least I tried to be – but I left early and scurried back to San Francisco.

I tried to put it behind me, but Juan kept calling. For everyone’s sake, I tried to let him down gently, but he didn’t seem to take the hint. For whatever reason, he was smitten.

I wanted to ask Brittany for advice, but she had more important things on her mind. When she showed up for classes, she told me she was pregnant. She was happy, mostly because she and Fernando had decided to elope. I couldn’t very well rain on that parade, so I kept my mouth shut and made sure I was nice – but not encouraging – when Juan would call.

I missed my period a couple weeks later, but I didn’t really think much about it. I’d always been a bit irregular. By six weeks after the party, though, I was worried. I got one of those rabbit tests, and sure enough, yup, I was pregnant. I knew it was Juan’s; that party was the first time I’d been with anyone that summer, and I’d felt so bad afterward that I had kind of avoided guys for a while. I’d been careful about birth control — I always was — but it hadn’t worked.

I was scared. So scared! I talked to my mom, and she laid down the law. She wanted me home – I guess no convent would take me! – and she wanted me to finish classes. It was a “do it or else” sort of thing, and that always pushed my buttons. We ended up having a huge fight.

I told Juan. I thought it was only right to tell him. He wanted to marry me, right away. To “make things right.” And of course, he swore he loved me and said he would take care of me properly. But I wasn’t feeling it.

Finally, I talked to Brittany. We talked and we talked. The only thing I couldn’t tell her was that I loved her man and not his brother. But she said we’d all be one family, and we’d find a way to make it work. We’d all go live out on a farm in the back end of nowhere and raise a gagillion kids, and we’d turn the place upside down and learn how to make pies like Laura Ingalls Wilder, and we’d sew fancy dresses for all the girls. She made it sound like fun, and that was always Brittany’s magic.

I held off making a decision, but Mom cut off my tuition payments when I hit five months. That’s when I took the plunge. I told Juan I wasn’t willing to get married just yet, but we could live together for a while and see if we could make it work. I knew that would be a scandal, but we barely knew each other. I thought maybe I could learn to love him, and that maybe becoming a mother would make a big difference.

Juan was as good as his word. He left UCR at the same time I left CCAC, and he got a job back in Buttonwillow where he grew up, so that we’d have a roof over our heads and food on the table. We stayed with his mom at first – your Abuela – because we couldn’t afford our own place.

Everything was foreign. Everything. Of course, I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t win any brownie points by “living in sin” with Juan. I missed my friends, and school, and my city, and the ocean.

Most of all, I missed Brittany. I kept telling myself I just needed to hang on until she showed up, then everything would work out just like we’d planned. But her pregnancy had hit a big snag, and she had to stay on bed rest for the last trimester. So she was stuck in Fresno, and I was stuck in Buttonwillow. I’d have gone up to visit her, but we didn’t have the money and my own pregnancy was no picnic.

I was an emotional wreck. I don’t think a day went by when I wasn’t in tears about something. Mamá Santiago was obviously very disappointed in Juan. She never smiled. But I’ll tell you this – somehow, she held us together even when we were both losing our shit.

By the time your cousin Kelsey was born in April, Brittany was so weak she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t even raise her arm above her shoulder. She didn’t have enough strength to feed herself, much less her baby. But they both survived, and she said Fernando took care of them. She promised they would come down just as soon as she got her strength back. But in the meantime I couldn’t see them.

Then you were born, in early June, and I didn’t have time for anything else. I’d honestly never thought about being a mother, and it felt like I was constantly messing up. Your Abuela was seriously unimpressed! I know she would have helped, but I just found her so intimidating that I was afraid to ask.

My body bounced back from pregnancy and giving birth pretty quickly. When I was better, though, Juan grew more persistent. We were living together, but . . . I still hadn’t warmed up to him. I was feeling lonely and depressed.

One of his former teachers took pity on us and started inviting us out, but it wasn’t a success. I enjoyed them, but your father always got angry and upset. It didn’t take long before those outings stopped. My whole social circle at that point was just Juan and his family.

I prayed for the day when Brittany would be strong enough to join us. But her body wasn’t absorbing nutrients properly. Even with a ton of effort and PT and will-power, she’d barely managed to recover her ability to walk by a year after giving birth. And that’s when she caught some bug that set her right back again. It tore through her, and nothing that the doctors did made any difference. She held on — God, she was a fighter, and she so wanted to live! — but she just kept getting weaker and weaker.

She died on August 6, 1996. Hiroshima Day, appropriately enough. Even now I can’t write those words without crying. It’s hard for me to believe that was almost twenty-eight years ago. It still aches like it happened yesterday. I’ll never forget the date. I’ll never, ever, stop missing her.

That was pretty much the last straw. My fantasy of having one big happy family with my best friend was gone. I went a little crazy, I guess. At any rate, I was deeply depressed and couldn’t find the bottom.

One afternoon, I went down to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. You’d been more active than usual, so I hadn’t been able to get out earlier and I knew your father would be home soon. I was walking west on Front Street, right into the sun, when I saw a big rig headed toward me. You know how they’re always going back and forth; this was one of the ones that used to pass through town, hauling hazardous waste out to the old dumpsite.

Suddenly, everything just bubbled up inside, like my soul was screaming from the bottom of a pit, “Get me out of here!” The truck was there, right in front of me, and it was heading away. I didn’t know where, and I couldn’t bring myself to care. Before I could think of all the reasons why what I was doing was insane, I stuck out my thumb.

I suppose I was lucky. The trucker was a decent guy, and all he did was give me a lift into town. I bought a bus ticket to get back to the Bay Area, even though I didn’t have a clue what I’d do when I got there. I’d basically told my mom to go to hell when she’d made her ultimatum, and it’s hard to come back from that.

I stayed with a mutual friend of mine and Brittany’s. While I was still trying to screw up my courage to call my parents, Fernando found me. He and your uncle Augustin sat me down, and talked me through everything. Told me how much Juan missed me, and how much my baby needed me.

Augui went out to get us some take-out, and I had it out with Fernando. I told him I was dying in Buttonwillow. That his family was killing me. He understood, and he promised he’d come home too, with little Kelsey. That at least there would be someone there, who remembered the good times. Who remembered Brittany.

So I went back. And I tried. Honest to God, I tried. I agreed to marry Juan, and we moved out of your grandmother’s house. We were intimate again. But I didn’t love him, and couldn’t make myself love him. Not even after your brother was born. I threw all my efforts into trying to be some kind of a mom. I was almost as bad at that as I was at being a farmer’s wife.

I tried to fit in with the family. They were pretty much the only people I had to talk to — the only adult conversation that was available. I’d never had trouble making friends before, but somehow I couldn’t seem to break in. Everything I said, everything I did, seemed to be taken the wrong way, like I was speaking a different language altogether. The harder I tried, the worse it got. I was failing and causing trouble, and that just made me more lonely and heartsick. Fernando did what he could to help, but he was not my husband, and I was not his wife.

Then Dom was born, and I was caught up in all the tasks that go along with that. The first year after a baby is born, he just needs so much care! But he was sturdy, and started walking before he turned one.

When Dom was two and Ximo started kindergarten, Juan discovered I’d been taking birth control and we had a big fight about it. It’s like he was in some sort of competition with his father to see who could have the most sons. Weird, since he had no memory of the guy — I think he went back to Mexico before your padre was even born.

I felt like the walls were closing in. There was no escape. Things would never get any better, no matter how hard I tried or how long I stayed. I would just be there, saying the wrong things and doing the wrong things and popping out babies every year or two until I dropped.

One Sunday night, I found myself staring at a bottle of pills. I don’t remember what they were, but I remember what they represented: escape. I almost took them, but I chickened out.

The next day, I decided I just had to talk to Juan – I had to somehow get him to see how miserable I was. For the first time, I mentioned divorce.

It was the worst argument we’d ever had, and we’d had some doozies, let me tell you. In the end, he stormed out, as he often did. He didn’t come home that night, but I was glad about that. I don’t want to disparage your padre, especially not now. But he could be a mean drunk.

I sent you both off to school the next morning. I knew I had to leave, and I knew I had to bring Dom; he was only two. I wanted to take you and Ximo as well, but after a lot of thought I decided that wouldn’t be fair to either of you.

So I packed up everything Dom and I would need into a couple of suitcases. I took the money I’d saved up from the household account – a decent amount, because I’d been careful. Then I got a ride into Bakersfield and caught the first train that left the station. I didn’t care where it was heading. By that night, I was in Albuquerque. The following day, I caught a bus, and that’s how I ended up in Denver.

I started a new life, and I tried to leave the old one behind. To pretend that Kathleen Parker and Kathy Morales had never existed. Mostly that was just selfishness on my part, but I also didn’t think it would be fair to drop you and Ximo notes, just to keep my memory alive. Since I wasn’t going to go back I told myself that the best thing I could do was to make a clean break. Maybe then, Juan would find someone else — someone better — and all of you would have a proper family.

I found a cheap place to stay, and got work, and figured out all those things that single moms have to figure out, in a hurry. Denver wasn’t San Francisco by any stretch, but it was a real city. I actually felt less alone, in a city where I knew absolutely no-one, than I had in Buttonwillow, where it felt like I knew everyone.

When Dom was in kindergarten I met a new guy, and we started dating. It got serious in a hurry. Liam was newly divorced and had a baby girl; I think that may be why he didn’t have any issue with my past and accepted it when I didn’t want to talk about it, or about Dom’s dad. By the time he asked me to marry him, I didn’t want to risk what we might have together by telling him that I would need to get a divorce first, or that I had children he didn’t know about. I told myself no-one needed to know.

He’s been a good husband and he’s a great dad to his little girl. He wanted a son of his own, to carry on his family name, but I was done having children. If he couldn’t have that, I think he would have liked a son who would follow in his footsteps. Liam’s a finance guy, a business shark, but Dom’s a musician, just like my father. He even plays the violin, and when I close my eyes, it’s like I’m a little girl again, sitting in that sun-drenched music room in the big house on Russian Hill, listening to Dad prepare for a performance. I wish they could have met.

That’s my story, Carmen. That’s why I panicked when you called. You could probably tell it was me, since I said exactly the wrong thing. Just like old times. I knew that you could destroy my life with a phone call, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But after all these years, and all the grief you must have endured, I should have simply let you decide for yourself what to do.

I am so very sorry. For leaving you, for leaving Ximo. Even for leaving Juan, though there, I think, there was fault on both sides. It breaks my heart to hear that he has had a stroke, so young. We never found a way to be happy together, but I hoped somehow that he would find happiness once I had gotten out of his life.

I do not ask for your forgiveness, child of mine. I haven’t earned it. Just know that I never stopped loving you and your brother. I hope that you find your own path, and that you manage to avoid at least some of your mother’s many mistakes.

Tout m'amour, toujours,

Kate