Unlike most mothers, I gave birth to my daughter Setsuko not once, but twice.

The third time Paul died was in the middle of Maggie’s school musical

Brave and smart and idiotic and trusting and head-of-fluff girls die. All the time. In horrible ways. The world is cruel.

“Every time, it’s the same. A man hands me a golden scarab.”

It was in that moment at thirteen—eyes on what predated me, fear in my heart and breath knocked out my lungs—that I came closest to being like God.

“My dad is pretty nuts too,” I said. “He thinks I’m going to be a C-E-O. He thinks that See-Eo is a word in the dictionary that means: ‘guy who funds his gambling addiction.’”