My old, automatic optimism is gone. Gone for good, I think. In its place I feel the seed of a different kind of hope, a heart that knows what rage is like and trust that lives with open eyes. Even in my turmoil, I can inventory my strengths. I am smart. I know how to work hard. I am loved. Most of all, I am loved. It is my family’s love that saved me as a baby and has carried me safe thus far. Maybe someday it will fail me, but for now, just now, I will accept it as my best security. They are ready to give me everything I need, and they ask only that I be happy.

I’m not sure how, exactly, but I’m pretty sure I can do it. I think I can be happy, at least as happy as most people are. Butner will not have me. I have to believe that, although now I know that nothing is certain. One thing, however, I believe is almost certain: I’ll never be “just like a normal girl.” What I will be is beyond my imagining.

We reach the paved road, and I am still crying. My family ask no questions. I know they are mystified, but I can’t worry about that, can’t try to explain. I am going on a path of my own, a road they cannot take. I’ll be alone, a separate person, even if, physically, I remain as close to them as ever. I’ll take food from their hands, depend on them, live with them in love and harmony, but I will remain incomprehensible. Perhaps I will indulge them and let them think they understand, but they never will.

In the station wagon we sit so close we could easily hold hands, all four of us. But, waiting for my tears to be cried out, they leave me alone. As I feel them withdraw, I weep for the closeness we are losing. At the same time, I’m grateful to them for holding back, more grateful than I am for all the care they give me, more grateful than I am even for life itself. Now they are giving me a gift they don’t really want to give. A gift they cannot even understand.

I have never felt more alone. I have never felt farther separated from my family. And in my whole life I have never loved them so much.

Epilogue

Epilogue

SARA J. BUCHANAN

ATTORNEY AT LAW

August 21, 2000

Dear Willie:

Since I did that TV talk show, I’ve heard from more friends and enemies and rank strangers than you could imagine—but all that’s nothing compared to hearing from you!