One day, toward the end of the summer, I got a call from a Maryland number I didn’t recognize. I answered out of curiosity. “Oh my god, I’ve been trying to reach you!” said a woman on the other end. It was my aunt Debbie, my father’s sister. She’d tracked me down because my mother had asked her to. She was furious with my father for kicking me out. This was relief I hadn’t realized I wanted. I cried. She cried. She said she had just wanted to make sure I had a place to stay, and when I told her that I was on the street, living in my father’s truck, she suggested I come stay with her in
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