... I Stayed Because Running Seemed Too

What I Am Telling You, Before You Begin My Story, Is This -- Two Things: I Crave Truth. And I Lie.

You Don't Have To Like Your Family, You Don't Even Have To Spend Time With Them, To Know Them Right Down To The Bone.

...and Our Footsteps Rang And Echoed Till It Sounded Like The Room Was Full Of Dancers, The House Calling Up All The People Who Had Danced Here Across Centuries Of Spring Evenings, Gallant Girls Seeing Gallant Boys Off To War, Old Men And Women Straight-backed While Outside Their World Disintegrated And The New One Battered At Their Doors, All Of Them Bruised And All Of Them Laughing, Welcoming Us Into Their Long Lineage.

But Give Me More Credit Than That. Someone Else May Have Dealt The Hand, But I Picked It Up Off The Table, I Played Every Card, And I Had My Reasons.

I Had Learned Early To Assume Something Dark And Lethal Hidden At The Heart Of Anything I Loved. When I Couldn't Find It, I Responded, Bewildered And Wary, In The Only Way I Knew How: By Planting It There Myself.