When I Was Four, My Mother Left Me Alone in a Church—Twenty Years Later She Returned Crying, “We Need You”
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Chapter 20 / 34
Chapter 20 - FLORENCE
That night, rain hammered Florence’s sunroom windows.
I sat on the ottoman beside her chair.
She listened without interruption.
When I finished, she asked:
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
I stared.
“Good?”
“If you knew immediately, I’d worry the decision was coming from shock.”
I looked down at Hannah’s photograph.
“I don’t owe them anything.”
“No.”
“If I don’t get tested because I hate them?”
Florence waited.
“Would that make me like them?”
“No.”
I looked up.
“Really?”
“Your body is not repayment.”
May you like
She closed her hymnbook.
“Donation is voluntary or it isn’t donation.”
