And then I remembered what happened after I’d plunged beneath the water. How I’d sunk to the bottom, feeling the air in my lungs dissipating the longer I lingered. How I’d looked to the surface and salvation but saw only my father’s and mother’s ethereal faces and decided to stay with them a little longer. Even when my lungs had begun to burn, and I knew I’d stayed too long, I still didn’t swim for the surface. I’d let myself drift away until all the pain, grief, and uncertainty of where I belonged finally, blissfully, stopped. It was yet another truth I would have to take to my grave. But as
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