The story I knew about my family’s matriarch was the story of a saint, a martyr, a mother, a wife. A stock character, really. A duty-bound woman who waited patiently for her wandering husband. How many of those kinds of women populate history books and great novels? A sexless being, free of passion. She was a vessel of purity who bore and raised strong children. For generations, we passed down the parts of her that the storytellers found appealing.
