Even then, as a freshman in college, I still clung to the notion that somehow I was my mother’s favorite, more beloved than Peter or Christopher or even Ben. For better or worse, that was who Malabar was to me, the most central and important person in my life, even if I wished it were otherwise. For as long as her love affair had been going on, for me, the “we” had always been my mother and me. Not Ben and Malabar. If Ben was everything to my mother, then what was I? Was I not worth living for too?
