parents had made, while also trying to be good enough for other people to love. I am still living as if the choices made by others—from my first parents giving me up, to my adoptive parents loving me and then letting me leave—are debts I have to repay, marks in a ledger I can never hope to expunge. Even this trip, and all the essential tasks I’ve assigned myself—have I not approached them as though I have something to atone for? As if there exists some list of things a good daughter does for her dying parent, responsibilities I didn’t fulfill for my father, and now I have to prove my love and
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