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”

Soon the conversation became more specific.

The book came up.

How nice it would be if another book included good family memories.

Holidays.

The past.

Then Mark suggested softly that with everything going so well for me now, maybe we could all be reasonable about helping each other out.

There it was.

Help.

The same word I had used in a hospital stairwell a year earlier.

Now returning from the people who had refused it.

Except now there was money attached to my name.

So suddenly, help was something families