My parents refused to care for my younger kids while I tended to my oldest with leukemia; I called my ex-husband, but he said: “You’re just a poor writer, deal with it”

for them.”

I stood beneath a flickering hospital light holding a phone that had now told me, twice in two days and through different mouths, that my children’s emergency was an inconvenience to the people who were supposed to love them.

I hung up.

I went back into Kora’s room.

She was asleep.

I opened a yellow legal pad and picked up my pencil.

Then I started planning.

For the next several weeks, I built our life out of duct tape and willpower.

Barely.

But it held.

Mrs. Linkfist, our