my mother’s, nor my grandmother’s or grandfather’s. I am simply me; I am my own. It’s a sad dream. I have often brought the weight down, hard, on this little boy. I’ve taken over my father’s cruelest work and often done it too well. To do it well, you must mistake and distort your child, your most beloved treasure, into being something he is not, a competitor in the household. Then, when his eyes gaze up, past the garrison belt, beyond the buttons on the olive work shirt, up, until they meet the eyes that hold the answer to “Who am I?,” that answer comes clear and devastatingly hard, and is
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