I must, I now see, have driven her to distraction as a child: my intractability, my wildness, my irrational refusals, my craving for independence, my constant assertions of autonomy. “You were,” she is given to saying these days, with a sigh, “a nightmare to rear.” And I can believe it. Photographs of me show a gauche, awkward middle child, nose too large, teeth growing in crooked, a stormy yet wary expression on my face, a poorly rendered version of my prettier, more equable older sister. I was contrary. I had tantrums. I was given to screaming fits, emotional outbursts, peaks and troughs of
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