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In my first novel I had a rich, thoughtless, lying boyfriend who tells a young woman who has just lost her sister that he is single when he is actually married. In my second novel I had a “best friend” who was codependent and needy, controlling, and possibly in love with the main character. In my third novel there was a family who lost a beloved son and brother and a murderer who killed a babysitter. These characters were based on true people, and I didn’t waste any sleep wondering whether someone was going to hate me or sue me or accuse me of being a bad person. Writing was punishment enough. If someone wanted to hate me for what I did, so be it.

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Home. It feels like I’ve been gone for a million years and like I never left. I emulate my parents’ routine, a balanced breakfast at eight in the morning, soft boiled egg, one piece of toast lightly buttered, or cereal, fruit, plain yogurt. The papers, The New York Times and local, my mother does the puzzle, my father supplies answers. I have been living amongst savages and have lost the practice, more than a practice for me, an obsession, and an addiction to reading. Reentry is challenging and my mother stares at me hard as if she can discern all the drugs, the alcohol, and the men.

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During the rest of the weekend, I obsessively reviewed what I’d worn to work. I took out all my clothes and tried to eliminate anything that was overly feminine or revealing. But my clothes were not the problem. There was nothing to suggest sexual availability. For the second time in my life, I had failed to keep a man from sexually abusing me; a man that I knew, a man that I thought respected me. I hated myself even more than usual. On Saturday afternoon I went to the package store and bought several bottles of wine. I spent that night drinking.

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