Heretic: A Memoir

by Jeanna Kadlec

I’m hosting: constantly scanning the room for empty hands and glasses, walking around pouring freshly uncorked rosé and distributing sweating ice-cold bottles of Topo Chico, refilling the cheese board, putting out forks for dessert, trying to ensure that everyone here has gotten some amount of one-on-one attention. But a few times, I pause to take it all in. People from almost every important part of my life are here, and so many who couldn’t make it sent flowers and spices and other sweet gifts, and this feels like a culmination: the gifts, a ceremonial blessing; everyone’s presence, a ritual way-opening. Having so many people I care about in one place, talking, laughing, finding points of connection. This kind of togetherness is all I ever wanted. I look around, and I know—whatever home is, I have found it.