Ashamed Of My Family Quotes

I hope somebody cares because I sure don't. I sure don't. Not anymore. I'm ashamed to go around my family. I'm too embarrassed to confide in my friends. Outside of work I don't have a life.

(You do not have to be shamed in my closeness. Family are the people who must never make you feel ashamed.) (You are wrong. Family are the people who must make you feel ashamed when you are deserving of shame.) (And you are deserving of shame?) (I am. I am trying to tell you.) 'We were stupid,' he said, 'because we believed in things.' 'Why is this stupid?' 'Because there are not things to believe in.' (Love?) (There is no love. Only the end of love.) (Goodness?) (Do not be a fool.) (God?) (If God exists, He is not to be believed in.)

I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America. You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand. I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House. You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down. Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too. The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms. We were not afforded that liberty. But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will “hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice. Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us. If I can ask only one thing of the American people, it’s this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, don’t let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election. And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families I’ve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you now—the First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.

He said, “my discourse was all very strange, but especially the last part; for he could not understand, why nature should teach us to conceal what nature had given; that neither himself nor family were ashamed of any parts of their bodies; but, however, I might do as I pleased.” 

Because he doesn’t want me talking to my grandmother.” Barabas looked at Curran. Curran shrugged. “It’s a family thing. Sometimes your father puts your semidead grandmother into a really bad place and is ashamed of it.” “Yeah,” Barabas said. “We’ve all been there.” “You two are a riot,” I told them.

When I see teenagers out in public with their families, holding back, refusing to walk with mom and dad, ashamed to be seen as part of a family, I have to admit that I have acted that way myself, at times, with regard to my Christian inheritance. A hapless and mortally embarrassed adolescent lurked behind the sophisticated mask I wrote in my twenties: faith was something for little kids and grandmas, not me.

When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense. Arraigned to my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night--of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rapidly devoured the ideal--I pronounced judgement to this effect-- That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. "You," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You're gifted with the power of pleasing him? You're of importance to him in any way? Go!--your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference--equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to dependent and novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe! Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night? Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does no good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and if discovered and responded to, must lead into miry wilds whence there is no extrication. "Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own pictures, faithfully, without softening on defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.' "Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory--you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imageine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye--What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!--no sentiment!--no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution... "Whenever, in the future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them--say, "Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indignent and insignifican plebian?" "I'll do it," I resolved; and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

She made no attempt to hide her grief, which must have been her father’s grief also, and this surprised me, that she would not try and mask it somehow, that she was not ashamed of the drama, as my family would have been, but inhabit it with rage and sadness, as if it were the cloak of some great animal that she had just slain.

Ah, the Hand of Glory!” said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy’s list and scurrying over to Draco. “Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir.” “I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin,” said Mr. Malfoy coldly, and Mr. Borgin said quickly, “No offense, sir, no offense meant —” “Though if his grades don’t pick up,” said Mr. Malfoy, more coldly still, “that may indeed be all he is fit for —” “It’s not my fault,” retorted Draco. “The teachers all have favorites, that Hermione Granger —” “I would have thought you’d be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat you in every exam,” snapped Mr. Malfoy. “Ha!” said Harry under his breath, pleased to see Draco looking both abashed and angry.

Alaska brings out the best and the worst in a man. Maybe if you'd stayed Outside you never would have become who you are now. I know about 'Nam, and it breaks my heart what you boys went through. But you can't handle the dark, can you? It's nothing to be ashamed of. Most folks can't. Accept it and do what's best for your family.

Dalinar took a deep breath, then forced himself to open his arms and pull back. “If you had hoped to soothe my worries for the day, then this didn’t help.” She folded her arms. He could still feel where her safehand had touched him on the back. A tender touch, reserved for a family member. “I’m not here to soothe you, Dalinar. Quite the opposite.” “Please. I do need time to think.” “I won’t let you put me away. I won’t ignore that this happened. I won’t—” “Navani,” he gently cut her off, “I will not abandon you. I promise.” She eyed him, then a wry smile crept onto her face. “Very well. But you began something today.” “I began it?” he asked, amused, elated, confused, worried, and ashamed at the same time. “The kiss was yours, Dalinar,” she said idly, pulling open the door and entering his antechamber. “You seduced me to it.” “What? Seduced?” She glanced back at him. “Dalinar, I’ve never been more open and honest in my life.” “I know,” Dalinar said, smiling. “That was the seductive part.” He closed the door softly, then let out a sigh. Blood of my fathers, he thought, why can’t these things ever be simple? And yet, in direct contrast with his thoughts, he felt as if the entire world had somehow become more right for having gone wrong.

I was a prisoner inside my own body. I felt desperate, angry, stupid, confused, ashamed, hopeless and absolutely alone... and that this was of my own making. I could speak at home, how come I couldn't outside it? I have never been able to find the right words to describe what it was like. Imagine that for one day you are unable to speak to anyone you meet outside your own family, particularly at school/college, or out shopping, etc., have no sign language, no gestures, no facial expression. Then imagine that for eight years, but no one really understands. It was like torture, and I was the only person that knew it was happening. My body and face were frozen most of the time. I became hyperconscious of myself when outside the home and it was a relief to get back as I was always exhausted. I attempted to hide it (an impossible task) because I felt so ashamed that I couldn't do what other people seemed to find so natural and easy - to speak. At times I felt suicidal.

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It’s easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she’ll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she’d be too nervous that people wouldn’t eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn’t about perfection, and it isn’t about performance. You’ll miss the richest moments in life—the sacred moments when we feel God’s grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love—if you’re too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it’s scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip.

About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service.

The single craziest thing about being a priest, he’d found, was that celibacy was simultaneously the most private and most public aspect of his life. One of his linguistics professors, a man named Samuel Goldstein, had helped him understand the consequences of that simple fact. Sam was Korean by birth, so if you knew his name, you knew he was adopted. "What got me when I was a kid was that people knew something fundamental about me and my family just by looking at us. I felt like I had a big neon sign over my head flashing ADOPTEE," Sam told him. "It’s not that I was ashamed of being adopted. I just wished that I had the option of revealing it myself.

I had once thought that I came from a line of Gods, and I had punished myself for failing to be Godlike. But we were not Gods, and I was not the avatar for our family’s unraveling. I was just another product of inherited trauma, unresolved grief, and reactive survival mechanisms, like everyone else who came before me. We were mortals who felt ashamed when we failed to appear omnipotent. Now I see that my job was to release my ancestors from this burden, to allow those who come next the freedom to be ordinary.

Back then, I would have begged forgiveness from my friends in the BSC. I would have tried like crazy to balance my time between school, the club, Robert and my family. I would have gone on feeling guilty about my boyfriend at BSC meetings, embarrassed about one set of friends while I was with the other, but I wasn't feeling apologetic now or guilty or ashamed.

We must go quickly before my sister gets back." "Which are you ashamed of, her or me?" "I'm ashamed of myself," said Sebastian gravely. "I'm not going to have you get mixed up with my family. They're so madly charming. All my life they've been taking thongs from me. If they once got hold of you with your charm, they'd make you their friend not mine, and I won't let them.

I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on...........

It took me years to stop feeling the guilt she made sure I kept feeling about what happened with him. He is a sick person that molests children, but I felt so bad about it for so long. I couldn't talk to a single person about any of this. No one. And she made me feel so bad about it all that I felt I shouldn't talk about it, even if there was someone. I felt ashamed and thought I was an awful person. Sometimes I still do. My mother abandoned me in the worst ways possible.

Some people will say, well there were more men in the country at that time who looked like Cleveland than did not. Still, that is how he looked. Cleveland was once a sheriff himself. He brought a good deal of misery to the land in the Panic of ‘93 but I am not ashamed to own that my family supported him and has stayed with the Democrats right on through, up to and including Governor Alfred Smith, and not only because of Joe Robinson. Papa used to say that the only friends we had down here right after the war were the Irish Democrats

Other girls- our friends’ daughters, my friends when I was a girl, your sisters, were all so merry and sociable. You… were always so quiet. You never joined in, never participated in any activities, and I never knew how to make you feel as if you could. As if you were welcome. So I suppose that embarrassed me. I knew that it was my failure. That I could not give you whatever it was that you needed to be happy. That’s what made me ashamed. Because I never really knew how to be your mother. With your sisters, I could be myself. I could talk about dresses, and suitors, and we could do one another’s hair. You never wanted any of that.

It was only after I'd grown up and left that I developed an attitude [towards the South]. And at first my attitude was that I was ashamed of it. But the older I got the more I realize that the transgressions of the South were the transgressions of mankind, and that there were certain things that were superior. There is a cultural attitude in the South that embraces respect for family...and in some ways for country. Although patriotism is not among the highest virtues on my list, still, the patriot believes in something larger than himself, and it is therefore a virtue. There is an attitude in the South that there is more to life than the moment.

Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive—that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God—talk to Him and all—wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hotshot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but be wasn't in the right mood.

My fight isn’t so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on me with the weight of my family history, my genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with a blade of a machete cleared the pathways of life. They’re still doing it. They ate with the machete, they worked, they shaved, killed, and settled differences with their wives with machete. Today the machete is a shotgun, a nine-millimeter, a chopper. The weapon has changed but not its use. The story has changed, too, has become terrifying. Once proud, we are now ashamed, without understanding how, why, and when it all happened. We don’t know how long our history is, but we can feel its weight.

It’s been published elsewhere, and I am not ashamed to say it: I came to the United States illegally. I now have my residence card, have paid a large fine for crossing illegally, and am applying for full citizenship status. There’s no country I’d rather live in than the United States. I truly believe it is the greatest country in the world. I feel blessed to be living and raising my kids here. However, for the poor and working class of Mexico, there is no other way to come to America except illegally. It’s impossible. The Mexican government is about who you know and how much money you have. You have to pay enormous amounts to officials in order to get a legal visa. My family had no way to get their hands on that kind of money. So, with just one hundred dollars in my pocket, I set out for Tijuana to figure out how to get across the border.

Still, if I mourn and mourn with my body and soul, if I go out into the streets and act and try with what strength I have to make a difference for the sake of my survival and the survival of others, that can’t be taken away. I will not be ashamed before the victims and their families, and we will be progressing slowly, very slowly but surely, toward a better world for both you and me—as we survive, and remember, and mourn.

tumbled into love, into ecstasy and trust, joy and peace without horizon, without time, beyond words. We turned our backs on the world to invent and build our own. We thrilled each other with pretended violence, and we cosseted and babied each other too, gave each other nicknames, had a private language. We were beyond embarrassment. We gave and received and permitted everything. We were heroic. We believed we stood on a summit no one else, not in life, not in all poetry, had ever climbed. Our love was so fine and grand, it seemed to us a universal principle. It was a system of ethics, a means of relating to others that was so fundamental that the world had overlooked it somehow. When we lay on the narrow bed face to face, looked deep into each other’s eyes and talked, we brought our selves into being. She took my hands and kissed them and for the first time in my life I wasn’t ashamed of them. Our families, which we described to each other in detail, at last made sense to us. We loved them urgently, despite all the difficulties of the past. Same with our best, most important friends. We could redeem everyone we knew. Our love was for the good of the world. Trudy and I had never talked or listened with such attention. Our lovemaking was an extension of our talking, our talking of our lovemaking.

I have just reread The Age of Innocence. Poor Countess Olenska, so much more alive than everyone in New York. She was better than Newland Archer, to whom she couldn’t give herself because she was married. It didn’t matter to society that she had been wronged by her husband. They felt her life was over. Thanks to the modern age of divorce, my life is not. I am coming to see that as a blessing and not something to be ashamed of. I am starting to think that my life is a good thing to have. I do not believe that there were more happy marriages before divorce became socially acceptable, that people tried harder, got through their rough times, and were better off. I believe that more people suffered. Divorce is in the machine now, like love and birth and death. Its possibility informs us, even when it goes untouched. And if we fail at marriage, we are lucky we don’t have to fail with the force of our whole life. I would like there to be an eighth sacrament: the sacrament of divorce. Like Communion, it is a slim white wafer on the tongue. Like confession, it is forgiveness. Forgiveness is important not so much because we’ve done wrong as because we feel we need to be forgiven. Family, friends, God, whoever loves us forgives us, takes us in again. They are thrilled by our life, our possibilities, our second chances. They weep with gladness that we did not have to die.

I thought it would be easier for you that way. So you could hate me and forget.” “I did hate you. I hated you for making me feel cheap and foolish. I hated you for making me feel so ashamed, and distanced from my own family. And I hated myself for allowing it all to happen. But forget? How could I ever forget?” She blinked back tears. “You broke my heart into twenty-six pieces that day. But do you know something, Christian? Over the past several months here in Spindle Cove, I’ve stitched those pieces back together

It was cowardice, Mr Stevens. Simple cowardice. Where could I have gone? I have no family. Only my aunt. I love her dearly, but I can’t live with her for a day without feeling my whole life is wasting away. I did tell myself, of course, I would soon find some new situation. But I was so frightened, Mr Stevens. Whenever I thought of leaving, I just saw myself going out there and finding nobody who knew or cared about me. There, that’s all my high principles amount to. I feel so ashamed of myself. But I just couldn’t leave, Mr Stevens. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Miss Wooding turned the nervous shade of pink that Rosaline found people often turned when her sexuality went from an idea they could support to a reality they had to confront. “I appreciate this is a sensitive topic and one that different people have different beliefs about. Which is why I have to be guided by the policies of our academy trust, and they make it quite clear that learners shouldn’t be taught about LGBTQ until year six.” “Oh do they?” asked Rosaline, doing her best to remember that Miss Wooding was probably a very nice person and not just a fuzzy cardigan draped over some regressive social values. “Because Amelie’s in year four and she manages to cope with my existence nearly every day.” Having concluded this was going to be one of those long grown-up conversations, Amelie had taken her Panda pencil case out of her bag and was diligently rearranging the contents. “I do,” she said. “I’m very good.” Miss Wooding actually wrung her hands. “Yes, but the other children—” “Are allowed to talk about their families as much as they like.” “Yes, but—” “Which,” Rosaline went on mercilessly, “when you think about it, is the definition of discrimination.” Amelie looked up again. “Discrimination is bad. We learned that in year three.” The d-word made Miss Wooding visibly flinch. “Now Mrs. Palmer—” “Ms. Palmer.” “I’m sure this is a misunderstanding.” “I’m sure it is.” Taking advantage of the fact that Miss Wooding had been temporarily pacified by the spectre of the Equality Act, Rosaline tried to strike a balance between defending her identity and catching her train. “I get that you have a weird professional duty to respect the wishes of people who want their kids to stay homophobic for as long as possible. But hopefully you get why that isn’t my problem. And if you ever try to make it Amelie’s problem again, I will lodge a formal complaint with the governors.” Miss Wooding de-flinched slightly. “As long as she doesn’t—” “No ‘as long as she doesn’t.’ You’re not teaching my daughter to be ashamed of me.” There was a long pause. Then Miss Wooding sighed. “Perhaps it’s best that we draw a line under this and say no more about it.” In Rosaline’s experience this was what victory over institutional prejudice looked like: nobody actually apologising or admitting they’d done anything wrong, but the institution in question generously offering to pretend that nothing had happened. So—win?

Writing Saving My Sister was by far the most difficult yet meaningful and rewarding experience of my life,” comments author Nicole Woodruff. “After losing my sister, Amanda, to a fentanyl overdose in June 2019, I was determined to make her story matter and bring meaning to this horrible tragedy. So many families lose loved ones to this disease but often suffer in silence or feel ashamed to speak up due to addiction’s stigma. My goal with this book is to reduce this stigma, bring greater awareness to these stories, and ultimately help people in similar situations to mine know they are not alone,” continues Woodruff.

Remus,” said Hermione tentatively, “is everything all right . . . you know . . . between you and—” “Everything is fine, thank you,” said Lupin pointedly. Hermione turned pink. There was another pause, an awkward and embarrassed one, and then Lupin said, with an air of forcing himself to admit something unpleasant, “Tonks is going to have a baby.” “Oh, how wonderful!” squealed Hermione. “Excellent!” said Ron enthusiastically. “Congratulations,” said Harry. Lupin gave an artificial smile that was more like a grimace, then said, “So . . . do you accept my offer? Will three become four? I cannot believe that Dumbledore would have disapproved, he appointed me your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, after all. And I must tell you that I believe that we are facing magic many of us have never encountered or imagined.” Ron and Hermione both looked at Harry. “Just—just to be clear,” he said. “You want to leave Tonks at her parents’ house and come away with us?” “She’ll be perfectly safe there, they’ll look after her,” said Lupin. He spoke with a finality bordering on indifference. “Harry, I’m sure James would have wanted me to stick with you.” “Well,” said Harry slowly, “I’m not. I’m pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren’t sticking with your own kid, actually.” Lupin’s face drained of color. The temperature in the kitchen might have dropped ten degrees. Ron stared around the room as though he had been bidden to memorize it, while Hermione’s eyes swiveled backward and forward from Harry to Lupin. “You don’t understand,” said Lupin at last. “Explain, then,” said Harry. Lupin swallowed. “I—I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since.” “I see,” said Harry, “so you’re just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us?” Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face. “Don’t you understand what I’ve done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her, I’ve made her an outcast!” Lupin kicked aside the chair he had overturned. “You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore’s protection at Hogwarts! You don’t know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don’t you see what I’ve done? Even her own family is disgusted by our marriage, what parents want their only daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child—the child—” Lupin actually seized handfuls of his own hair; he looked quite deranged. “My kind don’t usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it—how can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!

I like that,” Bree admitted. “It’s like…it’s never too late to change.” Her eyes met his, and she hoped he understood that she meant it for him as well as for herself. She wanted Alessandro to give in to the good she knew was in him and leave the Dardano family behind. “I forgot about that. I feel rather ashamed of it now. Because of the things I’ve done. Then I was looking at this tiny creature here, and you’re going to think I’m mad but…every time I look at him, he looks different to me. He’s the same boy, but something in him is always changing. It’s not a physical thing that I can explain to you, but it’s…like…I don’t know,” Alessandro said shrugging and lowering his head. He sat on the bed next to her and stared at the incubator. The baby’s eyes were open, staring back, blinking slowly, sleepily. “You’re seeing him become a person. Like all the parts of him are coming together and making this tiny person’s soul. He was one person in here,” Bree pointed to her stomach. “And now he’s changing on the outside so he can be a part of the world.” “That’s it,” Alessandro nodded. “He’s a part of the world now. My world, in a completely different way than when he was inside of you. It’s like having two sons and watching them become one as a slow minute by minute process. He’s never going to stop changing. What he thinks and feels now is not going to be what he thinks and feels tomorrow or fifty years from now.” “It’s the same for you,” Bree said, closing her fingers over his on the bed. “I don’t want to forget that again, Brianna. I don’t ever want to forget that I can change.” He looked so earnest that Bree couldn’t help bringing his hand to her lips. “Then don’t.

Why don’t you ever tell me about my real parents? You’re scared they’ll love me more than you do.” “Asha, we’ve already told you,” her mom says in a cracking voice. “We don’t know anything about them. That’s just the way things worked in India back then.” “And why don’t you ever take me to India? Every other Indian kid I know goes all the time. What is it, Dad—are you ashamed of me? I’m not good enough for your family?” Asha stares at her father, looking down at his hands clenched so tightly the knuckles are drained of color. “It’s not fair.” Asha can’t hold back the tears now. “Everyone else knows where they come from, but I have no idea. I don’t know why I have these eyes that everybody always notices. I don’t know how to deal with this damn hair of mine,” she yells, clenching it in her fist. “I don’t know why I can remember every seven-letter Scrabble word, but none of the periodic table. I just want to feel that someone, somewhere, really understands me!

How old am I? Over thirty, indeed? What cream do I use on my face? How many children do I have? Really—none? They offer condolences and smack their lips over my bad luck. My husband’s family must be very upset—I am married, of course? No? Again, they offer their regrets: a great shame that nobody wanted me. They understand—it is known to happen to some girls. Usually the very ugly or poor ones. Their concern extends to my parents: They must be unhappy, ashamed even, to have an old, unmarried daughter. And the relatives, horribly embarrassed, certainly? By now, I try to insist it may not be a complete disaster to be unmarried, but Setareh feels the need to intervene and freestyle the translation a little. She explains to the girls that, in her personal view, it is indeed a little tragic for my family. That concession renders sympathetic faces all around.When Sakina steps out of the room, questions become juicier: In the West, do I walk around almost naked in the streets? And have I “had relations” with a thousand men?

need to listen to my anger to know that I’ve had a boundary violated. I need to listen to my loneliness to know that I need to invest in deep relationships. I need to listen to my anxiety to know that I have an unresolved trauma that needs to heal. I need to listen to my depression to know that I need care for my heart’s deepest wounds. I need to listen to my fear to know that I may need to create safety. I need to listen to my stress and irritability to know that I’m out of balance and need rest or reprioritization. One common experience, however, keeps us all stuck. Instead of moving toward our pain and listening to the valuable messages it has for us, the vast majority of us move against or away from it. We ignore it, deny it, feel ashamed for feeling it, resent it, or attempt to numb, deflect, or dismiss it. We’ve been well taught to not listen to, or even feel, those yucky, hard feelings. Suck it up, buttercup. Be a man. Big girls don’t cry. Stop your whining or I’ll give you something to whine about! You can see why I believe we suffer from a very serious leprosy of the heart. And it’s killing us.

All the adults were beside themselves with the dislocation of what they were going through, by my grandmother's was of a different order. She had been separated from a sister who was her sole living connection to a family lost in the Holocaust. None of us had ever strayed from one another - ordinary people in the Soviet Union almost never traveled outside of it, and hardly even within it. But our genes also carried generations of anxiety about safety as Jews - if we went to the wrong place, or left the relative safety that came with community, the panic that set in was as intense in the person leaving as in the people being left. (My father left behind his brother and mother, but they weren't as close as my grandmother had been with her sister.) There must be no one for whom this is less natural to comprehend than Americans, whose country enshrines mobility as a national virtue - unless you ask African Americans about their elders, perhaps. It isn't only that Americans don't fear going from one place to another; it's also that thy don't fear letting each other go there and don't use guilt to discourage it, while those who go don't feel ashamed for wanting to.

Kestrel came often. One day, when she knew from Sarsine that Arin had returned home but she had not yet seen him, she went to the suite. She touched one of his violins, reaching furtively to pluck the highest string of the largest instrument. The sound was sour. The violin was ruined--no doubt all of them were. That is what happens when an instrument is left strung and uncased for ten years. A floorboard creaked somewhere in one of the outer chambers. Arin. He entered the room, and she realized that she had expected him. Why else had she come here so frequently, almost every day, if she hadn’t hoped that someone would notice and tell him to find her there? But even though she admitted to wanting to be here with him in his old rooms, she hadn’t imagined it would be like this. With her caught touching his things. Her gaze dropped. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind.” He lifted the violin off its nails and set it in her hands. It was light, but Kestrel’s arms lowered as if the violin’s hollowness were terribly heavy. She cleared her throat. “Do you still play?” He shook his head. “I’ve mostly forgotten how. I wasn’t good at it anyway. I loved to sing. Before the war, I worried that gift would leave me, the way it often does with boys. We grow, we change, our voices break. It doesn’t matter how well you sing when you’re nine years old, you know. Not when you’re a boy. When the change comes you just have to hope for the best…that your voice settles into something you can love again. My voice broke two years after the invasion. Gods, how I squeaked. And when my voice finally settled, it seemed like a cruel joke. It was too good. I hardly knew what to do with it. I felt so grateful to have this gift…and so angry, for it to mean so little. And now…” He shrugged, a self-deprecating gesture. “Well, I know I’m rusty.” “No,” Kestrel said. “You’re not. Your voice is beautiful.” The silence after that was soft. Her fingers curled around the violin. She wanted to ask Arin a question yet couldn’t bear to do it, couldn’t say that she didn’t understand what had happened to him the night of the invasion. It didn’t make sense. The death of his family was what her father would call a “waste of resources.” The Valorian force had had no pity for the Herrani military, but it had tried to minimize civilian casualties. You can’t make a dead body work. “What is it, Kestrel?” She shook her head. She set the violin back on the wall. “Ask me.” She remembered standing outside the governor’s palace and refusing to hear his story, and was ashamed once more. “You can ask me anything,” he said. Each question seemed the wrong one. Finally, she said, “How did you survive the invasion?” He didn’t speak at first. Then he said, “My parents and sister fought. I didn’t.” Words were useless, pitifully useless--criminal, even, in how they could not account for Arin’s grief, and could not excuse how her people had lived on the ruin of his. Yet again Kestrel said, “I’m sorry.” “It’s not your fault.” It felt as if it was. Arin led the way out of his old suite. When they came to the last room, the greeting room, he paused before the outermost door. It was the slightest of hesitations, no longer than if the second hand of a clock stayed a beat longer on its mark than it should. But in that fraction of time, Kestrel understood that the last door was not paler than the others because it had been made from a different wood. It was newer. Kestrel took Arin’s battered hand in hers, the rough heat of it, the fingernails still ringed with carbon from the smith’s coal fire. His skin was raw-looking: scrubbed clean and scrubbed often. But the black grime was too ingrained. She twined her fingers with his. Kestrel and Arin walked together through the passageway and the ghost of its old door, which her people had smashed through ten years before.

There was a time when my life seemed so painful to me that reading about the lives of other women writers was one of the few things that could help. I was unhappy, and ashamed of it; I was baffled by my life. For several years in my early thirties, I would sit in my armchair reading books about these other lives. Sometimes when I came to the end, I would sit down and read the book through from the beginning again. I remember an incredible intensity about all this, and also a kind of furtiveness—as if I were afraid that someone might look through the window and find me out. Even now, I feel I should pretend that I was reading only these women's fiction or their poetry—their lives as they chose to present them, alchemized as art. But that would be a lie. It was the private messages I really liked—the journals and letters, and autobiographies and biographies whenever they seemed to be telling the truth. I felt very lonely then, self-absorbed, shut off. I needed all this murmured chorus, this continuum of true-life stories, to pull me through. They were like mothers and sisters to me, these literary women, many of them already dead; more than my own family, they seemed to stretch out a hand. I had come to New York when I was young, as so many come, in order to invent myself. And, like many modern people—modern women, especially—I had catapulted out of my context; in important ways, the life of my mother, in her English village, was not much help. I remember reading in those dark years a review by John Updike in which he smoothly compared the lives of Jean Rhys and Colette. The first was in the end a failure, the second a triumph, he said. I took it personally, felt a stab in the heart. And poor Jane Bowles, said someone else, in the Times—you'd have to admit that hers was a desperate life. The successes gave me hope, of course, yet it was the desperate bits I liked best. I was looking for directions, gathering clues...

As Oliver and Freddy pulled away from the Blue Swan, Oliver paid little heed to the lad’s chatter about his spectacular meal. All he could hear was Maria calling him my lord, as if she hadn’t just been trembling in his arms. And the look on her face! Had she been insulted? Or just ashamed? How the devil had she stayed so collected, when he’d felt ready to explode after seeing her find her pleasure so sweetly in his arms? He’d actually come in his trousers, like a randy lad with no control over his urges. Now he had to keep his cloak buttoned up until he could reach Halstead Hall and change his clothes. She’d made light of their encounter, damn her. Though I thank you for the lesson in passion…Had it meant nothing more to her? Apparently not, since she’d said, It isn’t something we should repeat. Though the idea grated, she was right. They should stay apart, for his sake as well as hers. He’d actually offered to make her his mistress! He, who’d never kept a mistress in his life, who’d joked to his friends that mistresses were more trouble than they were worth since one woman was as good as another. He’d always been driven by the fear that a mistress might tempt him to let down his guard and reveal his secrets. Then even his family would desert him, and he couldn’t bear that. Even with his friends, he kept the strongbox of his secrets firmly closed. But with Maria… He stared out the window, trying to figure out at what point in their conversation he’d lost all good sense. Had it been when she’d said she didn’t believe the gossip about him? Or before that, when she’d chastised Pinter for telling it to her? No. Astonishing as those things had been, what had prompted his rash offer was the lost look on her face after he’d pointed out that Hyatt might not wish to be found. Even now he could see the fear rising in her eyes, much like the fear he’d seen in Mother’s eyes-of being inconsequential, unwanted. And suddenly he’d desired nothing more than to make Maria feel wanted. Not that he’d succeeded very well. She could hardly be flattered that he wanted her only for a mistress. He hadn’t meant it to insult her-he’d just been utterly swept up in the idea of her and him in a cottage together somewhere, without the rest of the rest of the world to muddy their lives.

Their Graces bought me, you know. They’d acquired my brother Devlin the year before, and my mother, inspired by this development, threatened to publish all manner of lurid memoirs regarding His Grace.” Acquired her brother? As if he were a promising yearling colt or an attractive patch of ground? “You are going to burden me with the details of your family past, I take it?” “You are the man who glories in details.” Without the least rude inflection, she made it sound like a failing. “My point is that my mother sold me. She could just as easily have sold me to a brothel. It’s done all the time. Unlike your sisters, Mr. Hazlit, I do not take for granted the propriety with which I was raised. You may ignore it if you please; I will not.” She had such a lovely voice. Light, soft, lilting with a hint of something Gaelic or Celtic… exotic. The sound of her voice was so pretty, it almost disguised the ugliness of her words. “How old were you?” “Five, possibly six. It depends on whether I am truly Moreland’s by-blow or just a result of my mother’s schemes in his direction.” Six years old and sold to a brothel? The food he’d eaten threatened to rebel. “I’m… sorry.” For calling her a dollymop, for making her repeat this miserable tale, for what he was about to suggest. She turned her head to regard him, the slight sheen in her eyes making him sorrier still. Sorrier than he could recall being about anything in a long, long time. Not just guilty and ashamed, but full of regret—for her. The way he’d been full of regret for his sisters and powerless to do anything but support them in their solitary struggles. He shoved that thought aside, along with the odd notion that he should take Magdalene Windham’s hand in some laughable gesture of comfort. He passed her his handkerchief instead. “This makes the stated purpose of my call somewhat awkward.” “It makes just about everything somewhat awkward,” she said quietly. “Try a few years at finishing school when you’re the daughter of not just a courtesan—there are some of those, after all—but a courtesan who sells her offspring. I realized fairly early that my mother’s great failing was not a lack of virtue, but rather that she was greedy in her fall from grace.” “She exploited a child,” Hazlit said. “That is an order of magnitude different from parlaying with an adult male in a transaction of mutual benefit.” “Do you think so?” She laid his handkerchief out in her lap, her fingers running over his monogrammed initials. “Some might say she was protecting me, providing for me and holding the duke accountable for his youthful indiscretions.” Despite her mild tone, Hazlit didn’t think Miss Windham would reach those conclusions. She might long to, but she wouldn’t. By the age of six a child usually had the measure of her caretakers. And to think of Maggie Windham at six… big innocent green eyes, masses of red hair, perfect skin… in a brothel. “I

In the course of my discussion with Ravenswood, I tried to get him to tell me how you got your scar, but he wouldn’t. He said I’d have to ask you.” Jane’s words came suddenly into his head: That’s why you haven’t shared this with your own family? That’s why you keep all of us out? Because you think it was your fault? Oh, my sweet darling, none of it was your fault. When Dom didn’t answer right away, Tristan went on, “I told Ravenswood you’d always brushed off the question with some nonsense about a fight you got into. But that isn’t true, I assume.” Dom ventured a glance at his brother and winced to see the hurt on his face. Jane had said, Every time you refuse to reveal your secrets, Dom, I assume that you find me unworthy to hear them. Apparently, that was how he’d made all of them feel. As if he were somehow too important to let them into his life. Only God could have stopped this disaster, and contrary to what you think, you aren’t God. When she’d said it, he hadn’t understood why she would accuse him of such a thing. Why she sometimes called him “Dom the Almighty.” But he understood now. By shielding his guilt from the world, he’d shut himself off from his family. From her. He’d pushed away the very people he should have embraced. Having just watched Jane retreat into fear and shut him out, he now knew precisely how painful it could feel to be on the receiving end. If he wanted to change all that, he would have to start opening his heart, letting his family--and her--see the things he was most ashamed of, most worried about. He would have to trust them to understand, to empathize, to love him in spite of everything. The only other choice was to keep closing himself up until, as she’d said at that ball last year: One day that church you’re building around yourself shall become your crypt. He didn’t want that. He took a steadying breath as he and Tristan walked up the steps to Ravenswood’s manor house. “As it happens, I did receive my scar in a fight. But it was a fight against the militia at the Peterloo Massacre.” When Tristan shot him a startled look, Dom halted at the top of the steps to face him. “If you want to hear the story, I’ll tell you all about it. Right now, if you wish.” Tristan searched his face, as if not quite sure he believed what he was hearing. “I’d like that very much.” Then he broke into a grin. “But only if we do it over a glass of Ravenswood’s brandy. That’s the best damned brandy I’ve ever tasted.” “One of the privileges of being a spymaster is that you can get your hands on the good stuff,” Dom said lightly, though his stomach churned at the thought of revealing his most humiliating secret, even to his brother. Still, as they headed inside, Tristan clapped him on the shoulder, and that reassured him. Telling Tristan about Peterloo represented a beginning of sorts, toward a closer friendship than Dom had allowed himself to have with his brother in recent years. Jane would be proud.

Don’t provoke Cheat,” Arin said as they stepped out of the carriage and onto the dusky path that led to the governor’s palace, which looked eerie to Kestrel because its impressive façade was the same as the night before, but the lights burning in the windows were now few. “Kestrel, do you hear me? You can’t toy with him.” “He started it.” “That’s not the point.” Gravel crunched under Arin’s heavy boots as he stalked up the path. “Don’t you understand that he wants you dead? He’d leap at the chance,” Arin said, hands in pockets, head down, almost talking to himself. He strode ahead, his long legs quicker than hers. “I can’t--Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize--my prize--it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won’t harm you, I swear that he won’t, but you must…hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you’re not better off dead. Swallow your pride.” “Maybe that’s not as easy for me as it is for you.” He wheeled on her. “It’s not easy for me,” he said through his teeth. “You know that it’s not. What do you think I have had to swallow, these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?” They stood before the palace door. “Truly,” she said, “I haven’t the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else.” He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: “You can make people feel so small.” Kestrel went hot with shame--then was ashamed of her own shame. Who was he, that she should apologize? He had used her. He had lied. Nothing he said meant anything. If she was to feel shame, it should be for having been so easily fooled. He ran fingers through his cropped hair, but slowly, anger gone, replaced by something heavier. He didn’t look at her. His breath smoked the chill air. “Do what you want to me. Say anything. But it frightens me how you refuse to see the danger you risk with others. Maybe now you’ll see.” He opened the door to the governor’s home. The smell struck her first. Blood and decaying flesh. It pushed at Kestrel’s gut. She fought not to gag. Bodies were piled in the reception hall. Lady Neril was lying facedown, almost in the same place where she had stood the night of the ball, greeting guests. Kestrel recognized her by the scarf in her fist, fabric bright in the guttering torchlight. There were hundreds of dead. She saw Captain Wensan, Lady Faris, Senator Nicon’s whole family, Benix… Kestrel knelt next to him. His large hand felt like cold clay. She could hear her tears drip to his clothes. They beaded on his skin. Quietly, Arin said, “He’ll be buried today, with the others.” “He should be burned. We burn our dead.” She couldn’t look at Benix anymore, but neither could she get to her feet. Arin helped her, his touch gentle. “I’ll make certain it’s done right.” Kestrel forced her legs to move, to walk past bodies heaped like rubble. She thought that she must have fallen asleep after all, and that this was an evil dream. She paused at the sight of Irex. His mouth was the stained purple of the poisoned, but he had sticky gashes in his side, and one final cut to the neck. Even poisoned, he had fought. Tears came again. Arin’s hold tightened. He pushed her past Irex. “Don’t you dare weep for him. If he weren’t dead, I would kill him myself.

Forgive me I hope you are feeling better. I am, thank you. Will you not sit down? In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. In declaring myself thus I'm fully aware that I will be going expressly against the wishes of my family, my friends, and, I hardly need add, my own better judgement. The relative situation of our families is such that any alliance between us must be regarded as a highly reprehensible connection. Indeed as a rational man I cannot but regard it as such myself, but it cannot be helped. Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which despite of my struggles, has overcome every rational objection. And I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife. In such cases as these, I believe the established mode is to express a sense of obligation. But I cannot. I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I'm sorry to cause pain to anyone, but it was most unconsciously done, and, I hope, will be of short duration. And this is all the reply I am to expect? I might wonder why, with so little effort at civility, I am rejected. And I might wonder why, with so evident a desire to offend and insult me you chose to tell me that you like me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character! Was this not some excuse for incivility if I was uncivil? I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. Do you think any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining the happiness of a most beloved sister? Can you deny that you have done it? I have no wish to deny it. I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, and I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself. But it's not merely that on which my dislike of you is founded. Long before it had taken place, my dislike of you was decided when I heard Mr Wickham's story of your dealings with him. How can you defend yourself on that subject? You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns! And of your infliction! You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, and yet you can treat his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule! And this is your opinion of me? My faults by this calculation are heavy indeed, but perhaps these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by the honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design on you, had I concealed my struggles and flattered you. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly below my own? You are mistaken, Mr Darcy. The mode of your declaration merely spared me any concern I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. From the very beginning, your manners impressed me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. I had known you a month before I felt you were the last man in the world whom I could ever marry! You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings and now have only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Please forgive me for having taken up your time and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness. Forgive me. I hope you are feeling better. I am, thank you. Will you no

Mason, son. Never be ashamed of who you are. Never long to be anyone but yourself. The mark of a great wolf, of a leader, is not the color of his fur, but the integrity of his heart, his soul. It’s who you are here.” He’d paused and placed his large calloused hand over my chest. “That matters. Something tells me you are destined for great things. You will bring honor to your family.

The word secret is so loaded, suggests its country cousin shame; but I wasn't ashamed of anything because our family secret wasn't dark and my mother acted neither apologetic nor embarrassed.

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking." As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave. Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values--a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness. How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself . . . yet.

They weren’t ashamed of their bodily functions and they didn’t lie to themselves or others. They had no patience for small talk or false pretenses. They would laugh when they wanted to like there was no tomorrow, and cry their eyes out when they felt like it. Basically, I had finally found my people. HOW I LOST MY VIRGINITY I always fantasized about losing my virginity the way I think most girls envision their weddings: being surrounded by my friends and family, with a clergyman present.

I would no more renounce my Country than my Religion: I would leave posterity free; but would not deprive them of an attachment that I value myself upon: Nor yet my country, of a family that never gave it cause to be ashamed of it.

I betrayed her.” She touched her tarnished belt buckle. “Margaret said she never wanted to see me again. She and I shared the same social circle, and we both adored the Library. But for her, it was a labor of love—she’d volunteered selflessly, giving without getting a centime in return.” “How could you leave?” “If I’d stayed, she would have lost everything, most especially the place she called home. I loved the Library, but I loved Margaret more. Too ashamed to tell friends and family the truth, too afraid of the consequences, I married Buck and left France without saying farewell. I’ve never seen my brother’s grave and hope my parents were able to claim his body.” She took a deep breath. “I ran. And until you, I’ve never told anyone.

Writing Saving My Sister was by far the most difficult yet meaningful and rewarding experience of my life. After losing my sister, Amanda, to a fentanyl overdose in June 2019, I was determined to make her story matter and bring meaning to this horrible tragedy. So many families lose loved ones to this disease, but often suffer in silence or feel ashamed to speak up due to the stigma that surrounds addiction. My goal with this book is to reduce this stigma, bring greater awareness to these types of stories, and ultimately help people in similar situations to mine know they are not alone.

IF I HAD KNOWN "If I had known" would be the words of a man who is ungrateful to God for him being called to serve. But in tears, I try to smile. The overwhelming need to be there for everyone. The spiritual battles and revelation with dreadful confrontation each day. Yet we are called unwise and drafted as weak. The misunderstanding by those you weep for day and night. Our discomfort to make them sleep peacefully. The fear that grips me when they say, “Leader hear my dreams. See what I saw…” and I am put into another frantic panic. My earnest prayers are to comfort those in pain, enrich those in poverty, forgive those in sin, and save those who need saving even if my life could be traded because I swore to save one soul even if it's the last thing done. The nights that require cuddles but embrace books, prayers, and constant confrontation with the wicked world. We do not even enjoy the world we live in but constantly seek to right the wrong made in the spiritual because we are set to be violent only which we can conquer. Sometimes, I say “If I had known”. But I am not ashamed of my shortcomings; even those before me had the same. Some said “if only you can take this cup away…”, some were afflicted with an incurable sickness, some were driven from their father’s land and they sort solace in Medina. Some were crucified, others tried by ordeal or burnt at the stake. Our family is far though they are close because we swore to keep those who follow our God as our brothers and sisters and love them as we love ourselves. The job of doing God’s work to me is to kill the flesh so that we can rise to glory. My flesh Oh Lord is ever before thee but be mild with it so I can enjoy the bounty of this life and the hereafter. Amen

I wonder if my mother felt any guilt or shame in that moment, knowing that a life that was livable for the monk and everyone else was not livable for her. I think it is more likely, however, that I am projecting my own guilt and my own shame onto my mother. She never had enough privilege to feel ashamed, only grateful.

This is why I suffer as I do. Still, I am not ashamed; for I know Him [and I am personally acquainted with Him] whom I have believed [with absolute trust and confidence in Him and in the truth of His deity], and I am persuaded [beyond any doubt] that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him until that day [when I stand before Him]. [1 Cor 1:8, 3:13; Phil 1:6]‡ 13Keep and follow the pattern of sound teaching (doctrine) which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.‡ 14Guard [with greatest care] and keep unchanged, the treasure [that precious truth] which has been entrusted to you [that is, the good news about salvation through personal faith in Christ Jesus], through [the help of] the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.‡ 15You are aware of the fact that all who are in [the province of] Asia turned away and deserted me, Phygelus and Hermogenes among them.‡ 16The Lord grant mercy to the family of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and showed me kindness [comforting and reviving me like fresh air] and he was not ashamed of my chains [for Christ’s sake];‡ 17but [instead] when he reached Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me— 18the Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord on that [great] day.

Kahnawake August 1704 Temperature 75 degrees “What do you mean--your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a family in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with family.” Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother--” The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montreal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.” Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My--my father? Alive? You saw him?” “Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montreal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?” Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out. Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed. “Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph?” Joseph stared down the wide St. Lawrence in the direction of Montreal. He was fighting for composure and losing. Each breath shuddered visibly through his ribs. The Indian men who never seemed to do anything but smoke and lounge around joined them silently. How runty the French looked next to the six-foot Indians; how gaudy and ridiculous their ruffled and buckled clothing. The Indians were not painted and they wore almost nothing. Neither were they armed. And yet they came as warriors. Two of their children were threatened. It could not be tolerated. Tannhahorens put one hand on Joseph’s shoulder and the other on Mercy’s. He was not ordering them around, and yet he did not seem to be protecting them. He was, it dawned on Mercy, comforting them. In Tannhahorens’s eyes, we are Indian children, thought Mercy. Her hair prickled and her skin turned to gooseflesh. She had spent the summer forgetting to be English--and Tannhahorens had spent the summer forgetting the same thing.

I could have killed you,” he said savagely. “You didn’t.” “I could have hurt you.” “You didn’t do that, either.” “God, Beatrix.” Christopher went to sit heavily at a hearthside chair, glass in hand. She followed him in a rustle of lavender silk. “I’m not Beatrix, actually. I’m her much nicer twin. She said you could have me from now on.” Her gaze flickered to the Armagnac. “You promised not to drink spirits.” “We’re not married yet.” Christopher knew he should have been ashamed of the sneering echo of her own earlier words, but the temptation was too much to resist. Beatrix didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry about that. It’s no fun, caring about my welfare. I’m reckless. I overestimate my abilities.” She lowered to the floor at his feet, resting her arms on his knees. Her earnest blue eyes, starred with heavy dark lashes, stared contritely into his. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did earlier. For my family, arguing is a sport--we forget that some people tend to take it personally.” One of her fingertips drew an intricate little pattern on his thigh. “But I have redeeming qualities,” she continued. “I never mind dog hair, example. And I can pick up small objects with my toes, which is a surprisingly useful talent.” Christopher’s numbness started melting like spring ice. And it had nothing to do with the Armagnac. It was all Beatrix. God, he adored her.

Kahnawake August 1704 Temperature 75 degrees “It’s me! Mercy Carter! Oh, Mr. Williams! Do you have news?” She flung herself on top of him. Oh, his beautiful beard! The beard of a real father, not a pretend Indian father or a French church father. “My brothers,” she begged. “John and Sam and Benny. Have you seen them? Have you heard anything about them? Do you know what happened to the little ones? Daniel? Have you found Daniel?” Mercy had forgotten that she had taken off her tunic to go swimming. That Joseph did not even have on his breechclout. That Mercy wore earrings and Joseph had been tattooed on his upper arms. That they stank of bear. Mr. Williams did not recognize Joseph, and Mercy he knew only by the color of her hair. He was stupefied by the two naked slimy children trying to hug him. In ore horror than even Ruth would have mustered, he whispered, “Your parents would be weeping. What have the savages done to you? You are animals.” Despair and shock mottled Mr. Williams’s face. Mercy stumbled back from him. Her bear grease stained his clothing. “Mercy,” he said, turning away from her, “go cover yourself.” Shame covered her first. Red patches flamed on her cheeks. She ran back to the swimmers, fighting sobs. She was aware of her bare feet, hard as leather from no shoes. Savage feet. Dear Lord in Heaven, thought Mercy, Ruth is right. I have committed terrible sins. My parents would be weeping. She did not look at Snow Walker but yanked on the deerskin tunic. She had tanned the hide herself, and she and Nistenha had painted the rows of turtles around the neckline and Nistenha had tied tiny tinkling French bells into the fringe. But it was still just animal skin. To be wearing hides in front of Mr. Williams was not much better than being naked. Snow Walker burst out of the water. “The white man? Was he cruel? I will call Tannhahorens.” No! Tannhahorens would not let her speak to Mr. Williams. She would never find out about her brothers; never redeem herself in the minister’s eyes. Mercy calmed down with the discipline of living among Indians. Running had shown weakness. “Thank you, Snow Walker,” she said, striving to be gracious, “but he merely wanted me to be clothed like an English girl. There is no need to call Tannhahorens.” She walked back. On the jetty, Joseph stood with his eyes fixed on the river instead of on his minister. He had not fled like Mercy to cover himself. He was standing his ground. “They aren’t savages, Mr. Williams. And they aren’t just Indians. Those children over there are Abenaki, the boy fishing by the rocks is Pennacook, and my own family is Kahnawake Mohawk.” Tears sprang into Mr. Williams’s eyes. “What do you mean--your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a family in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with family.” Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother--” The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montreal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.” Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My--my father? Alive? You saw him?” “Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montreal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?” Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out. Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed. “Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph?

My father sits at the head of a table before the carcass of an enormous American turkey. What he is ashamed of is the one act of decency I have yet encountered in all the tales of our family’s past. A young boy with a dead father and a dead friend bends down before a country dog and feeds it his butter sandwich. And I know that sandwich. Because he has made it for me. Two slices of that dark, unbleached Russian bread, the kind that tastes of badly managed soil and a peasant’s indifference to death. On top of it, the creamiest, deadliest of American butter, slathered in thick feta-like hunks. And on top of that cloves of garlic, the garlic that is to give me strength, that is to clear my lungs of asthmatic gunk, and make of me a real garlic-eating strong man. At a table in Leningrad, and a table in deepest Queens, New York, the ridiculous garlic crunches beneath our teeth as we sit across from each other, the garlic obliterating whatever else we have eaten, and making us one.

He's worried about you, Charles.  They all are." "They should hate me." "No they shouldn't, and they don't.  You're being absurd, and you know it." "But I've failed them.  I doubted their love, allowed myself to be deceived by letters I should have known were false, and caused them untold grief and sorrow . . . and now I have compounded that by coming back and showing them just what depths I've sunk to.  How ashamed they must be of me.  How ashamed I am of myself.  What must they think?" "They're your family, Charles.  You don't need to impress them, or pretend you're something you're not.  If you can't be yourself around them, and be accepted for the man that you are, then who can you be yourself around?" "You," he said bleakly.  "I can be myself around you.  I tell you things I've never told anyone else, I feel completely at ease around you, but then, you know all of my secrets and I have nothing to hide from you.  You have seen inside my head —" he gave a bitter little laugh — "literally.  'Sdeath, why shouldn't I feel comfortable around you?  You can see right through me." "And you think that Lucien cannot?" she asked, smiling and raising one brow.  "Really, Charles.  You are underestimating him." "Lucien is accustomed to seeing capability and confidence from me.  He was disappointed in me tonight.  Disgusted." "Worried, perhaps, more than disappointed.  Never disgusted.

To tell you the truth, I don't much wish anything, except to get out of this cursed country again." "Don't say that, Brotherton. You are an Englishman." "I am ashamed to say I am. I wish with all my heart that I had been born a Chinese or a Red Indian." This he said, not in furtherance of any peculiar cosmopolitan proclivities, but because the saying of it would vex his mother. "What am I to think of the country, when the moment I get here I am hounded by all my own family because I choose to live after my own fashion and not after theirs?

During Zachary's short lifetime, the science of addiction was well-documented, but it's different when it's your own child. You assume they know better, or are somehow different, when the fact is that as special as they are, they are just like everyone else." Dr. Jerry confided, "I'm ashamed when I think back on my behavior. Had I the ability to redo those last few months, I would spend those precious hours telling Zachary that I loved him, not screaming at the top of my lungs that he must've had some kind of moral failure, an absence of character, a hatred for his family, that made him choose not to stop.

But as law school acquaintances became close friends, I became less comfortable with the lies I told about my own past. - At Yale, I decided to change that. I'm not sure what motivated this change. Part of it is that I stopped being ashamed: My parents' mistakes were not my fault, so I had no reason to hide them. But I was concerned most of all that no one understood my grandparents' outsize role in my life. Few of even my closest friends understood how utterly hopeless my life would have been without Mamaw and Papaw. So maybe I just wanted to give credit where credit is due.

If I had a child, would my baby have the same problem Hunter had? I hoped not. Of course, if Eric and I continued in our relationship, I would never have a child unless I was artificially inseminated. I tried to picture myself asking Eric how he felt about me being impregnated by an unknown man, and I’m ashamed to say I had to smother a snigger. Eric was very modern in some respects. He liked the convenience of his cell phone, he loved automatic garage-door openers, and he liked watching the news on television. But artificial insemination . . . I didn’t think so. I’d heard his verdict on plastic surgery, and I had a strong feeling he’d consider this in the same category.

Do I look forward daily to that great family occasion when the children of God will finally gather in heaven before the throne of God, their Father, and of the Lamb, their brother and their Lord? Have I felt the thrill of this hope? Do I love my Christian brothers and sisters with whom I live day by day, in a way that I shall not be ashamed of when in heaven I think back over it? Am I proud of my Father, and of his family, to which by his grace I belong? Does the family likeness appear in me? If not, why not? God humble us; God instruct us; God make us his own true children.

Forgive Me, Lord [Verse] Lord, I've been lost for a long, long time, Done things I'm ashamed of, crossed that line. Down those dusty back roads, runnin' wild, Haunted by a past that’s cruel and vile. [Verse 2] Whiskey and women, they stole my soul, Late night bar fights took their toll. In the glow of neon, sin’s easy to see, Prayin' for the dawn to set me free. [Chorus] Forgive me, Lord, I'm on my knees, Fightin' these demons, beggin' please. I've walked in shadows, lived in sin, Hope someday Your light will let me in. [Verse 3] I’ve lied to my mama, broke her heart, Tore our family clean apart. With calloused hands and a heavy heart, I seek redemption, need a new start. [Verse 4] I hear Your whispers, a distant call, Feel Your presence through it all. In the church pews, under the steeple, Yearnin' to be one of Your people. [Chorus] Forgive me, Lord, I'm on my knees, Fightin' these demons, beggin' please. I've walked in shadows, lived in sin, Hope someday Your light will let me in.

One early morning while jogging through the outskirts of Bahesht along the river, I had the rare privilege to witness a spectacular anthropological wonder. A huge caravan of what seemed like a thousand kuchis (nomads), at least twice that many camels toting all their worldly goods, and several thousand sheep and goats came walking through town on a singular dirt road. They were obviously heading to a new home somewhere up in the mountains, stirring up the dust in the early morning light. Their caravan stretched for well over a mile. As I ran past countless camels—laden with collapsed, black tents topped by ancient-looking women and led by men who looked as if they had stepped out of the Old Testament—I couldn’t help but marvel that these are some of the very few true nomads left on the face of the earth. The kuchis looked back at me as though I was from another planet. Abraham must have looked like these men, I thought as I continued my jog. Now there was a true nomad who walked by faith and not by sight! His citizenship was in heaven! It dawned on me that if I am to be a real follower of Jesus, I am called to be something of a nomad on this earth. I thought of a verse that I had recently read about Abraham and other spiritual nomads, Hebrews 11:16: “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” I smiled at the kuchi men that I jogged past. I know that I look different, but I am more like you than you may think ... I’m a nomad, too! Our guys in Bahesht were living as nomads on earth more than I was. I had a family and lived in the fair city of Iskandar in The Museum—basically a mud mansion—and here they were scraping by in one of the most remote and difficult places on the planet, trying to serve the poorest of the poor.

Let there be light. Gen. 1:3 Let there be enlightenment; let there be understanding. Darkness. Gen. 1:4 Ignorance; lack of enlightenment and understanding. Eden. Gen. 2:8 A delightful place; temporal life. Garden. Gen. 2:8 Metaphorically—a wife; a family. Tree of life in the midst of the garden. Gen. 2:9 Sex; posterity, progeny. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9 Moral law; the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. Gen. 2:9 Eternal life. The tree of good and evil. Gen. 2:17 Metaphorically—sexual relationship. Good. Gen. 2:17 Anything perfect. Evil. Gen. 2:17 Anything imperfect; contrary to good; immature. Naked. Gen. 2:25 Exposed; ashamed. Serpent. Gen. 3:1 An enemy; deception. Thorns and thistles. Gen. 3:18 Grievances and difficulties. Sent forth from the garden. Gen. 3:23 A loss of harmony; a lost paradise. God took him away. Gen. 5:24 He died painlessly. He had a heart attack. Sons of God. Gen. 6:2 Good men; the descendants of Seth. My spirit shall not dwell in man forever. Gen. 6:3 I have become weary and impatient. (A scribal note.) The Lord was sorry that He made man. Gen. 6:6 (A scribal note. See Old Testament Light—Lamsa.) I set my bow in the clouds. Gen. 9:13 I set the rainbow in the sky. I have lifted up my hands. Gen. 14:22 I am taking a solemn oath. Thy seed. Gen. 17:7 Your offspring; your teaching. Angels. Gen. 19:1 God’s counsel; spirits; God’s thoughts. Looking behind. Gen. 19:17 Regretting; wasting time. A pillar of salt. Gen. 19:26 Lifeless; stricken dead. As the stars of heaven. Gen. 22:17 Many in number; a great multitude. Went in at the gate. Gen. 23:18 Mature men who sat at the counsel. Hand under thigh. Gen. 24:2 Hand under girdle; a solemn oath. Tender eyed. Gen. 29:17 Attractive eyes. He hath sold us. Gen. 31:15 He has devoured our dowry. Wrestling with an angel. Gen. 32:24 Being suspicious of a pious man. Coat of many colors. Gen. 37:23 A coat with long sleeves meaning learning, honor and a high position. Spilling seed on the ground. Gen. 38:9 Spilling semen on the ground. (An ancient practice of birth control.) No man shall lift up his hand or foot. Gen. 41:44 No man shall do anything without your approval. Put his hand upon thine eyes. Gen. 46:4 Shall close your eyes upon your death bed. Laying on of hands. Gen. 48:14 Blessing and approving a person. His right hand upon the head. Gen. 48:17 A sincere blessing. Unstable as water. Gen. 49:4 Undecided; in a dilemma. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah. Gen. 49:10 There shall always be a king from the lineage of Judah. Washed his garments in wine. Gen. 49:11 He will become an owner of many vineyards. His teeth white with milk. Gen. 49:12 He will have abundant flocks of sheep. His bow abode in strength. Gen. 49:24 He will become a valiant warrior. The stone of Israel. Gen. 49:24 The strong race of Israel. He gathered up his feet. Gen. 49:33 He stretched out his feet—He breathed his last breathe; he died.

We're ashamed to think of ourselves as adopted, because to do so would focus our minds on the gory truth that all of us in Christ, like my sons, once were lost but now we're found, once were strangers and now we're children, once were slaves and now we're heirs.

Yeah I'm one broken mofo. I still care for myself tho. Keep it tidy. Still fit. No one does blip for me. I still eat and mingle with nature. Still recovering. Depression is a bear. It doesn't help that my ever best friend spits bullets. I asked one innocent thing. I begged to drop g's no strings attached. I knew we'd hit it off, maybe for life. I ached for it. Your gift, my trampoline. A hug. Some fun. Some delightful brain food. A happy that would last ages. It's a catch-22 scenario. I begin in the negative to someday find happiness, but I need happiness to get me out of the negative. What am I supposed to do? Take drugs? I teemed for 24 hours anticipating you. That was quite a drug. You call it a conversation? Nah, we be flingin. It's something; a dash of hope. You guesser, judge, jury, executioner. Thinkin I'm some monster by default. Guesser of what I meant. Guessed wrong. It's a choice. You could help pull out the knife or stick it in deeper and twist it around. You do what you enjoy killa. For years I was the only one with a stable income. They told me I was too stupid for school. Instead, I worked to support my family. I worked near 24/7. Then wham, catastrophe. Eugenics at play. Without a support system or tools to defend, you're tossed. I had a lawsuit but I failed to act in time. From zero and stranded in the sticks, I failed lots, threw away lots, I managed to make some money with my skills. Eventually I helped get a house in a decent neighborhood. They let a drug addicted hooker in. I fought the drug fiends. I paid the mortgage debt, several months behind, to save the place, but in the end, I couldn't win. They insisted on moving here. I was the only one with money. I came with to battle the new crisis and to recoup my losses until I figured out what to do next. Couldn't just abandon the kids. Over time the situation improved. Drugs were defeated. I didn't intend to stay. This place got to me. I am ashamed and battered by it all. No, I don't mess with drugs. I found the landscape of my field where most of the jobs are at has changed extensively over the years. I wasn't concentrated on that area. I'm obsolete. Without a degree, you're auto discarded. Still ways in, but I need to be on my A-game. Not going anywhere without exuding confidence. I'm all twisted up inside. Loneliness eating at me. Cold cruel world. My best friend dodgin me. All work, all alone, as it's always been. Can't do it all alone. In the end, what do I get? A hostile mob? Walked in for a chat. What I got was wacked.

Being scared just means you care about something. Nothing there to be ashamed of.” Our eyes locked. Held. Tuck dropped his hand and balled his fist. I bit my lip and nodded, my palm traveling to my belly. “I love this little person already.” “I know you do.” Tuck gripped my neck lightly, giving it a squeeze. “You’re not alone, Jensen. Families can take any shape, and sometimes, the unique ones are the most beautiful.

There was no pressure from my family or my peers, no judgment about my decision one way or the other. The only person pressuring me was me. I text messaged my dad right then. I was still feeling ashamed, so I asked him what he would think of me if I quit. His response was such a relief. “I am proud of you no matter what you’re doing,” he wrote. “If you are unhappy and getting sick over it, then leave. You will find your path, Serena, stop worrying. I love you.

I had once thought that I came from a line of Gods, and I had punished myself for failing to be Godlike. But we were not Gods, and I was not the avatar for our family’s unraveling. I was just another product of inherited trauma, unresolved grief, and reactive survival mechanisms, like everyone else who came before me. We were mortals who felt ashamed when we failed to appear omnipotent. Now I see that my job was to release my ancestors from this burden, to allow those who come next the freedom to be ordinary.

People just come and do things around him, making decisions for him - same as politicians and even our bosses do for us. They're the ones who run our lives. Adverts tell us what to buy, government tells us how to live, technology tells us when we have done something wrong. and coffees arrived 'on the house' "no we will pay for them" "You're rubbish at this game, Foxy. I have been lying to my wife since the morning after the honeymoon..." "what was the lie?" "I told her she was really something in the sack..." "I don't think so you introduced yourself..." "I gave my card to your daughter," Fox answered. "My...?" Realization dawned on Wishaw. "That was my wife" "Then you should be ashamed," Fox said, deciding this was as good a parting shot as any. If walls have ears, then windows definitely have eyes. :this was family. That explained a lot. Where family was involved, the normal rules did not apply.

I tell Killian the story of how I met Dimitri when I was twenty, how he saw me dance in a production of The Firebird and introduced himself backstage after the show. How polite and generous he seemed at first, how flatteringly smitten, how he courted me and even brought my mother flowers. Ashamed, I tell Killian how awed I was by Dimitri’s wealth—having come from a poor family myself—and how easy it was to be seduced by his charm and sweet, boyish face.

My heart ached. Who could leave two little children in the care of that monster, knowingly? I didn’t even recognize the name on the letter. Whoever he was, he was obviously so ashamed of what he went through that he couldn’t even bring himself to be around family anymore. Was a family’s reputation so important that children needed to be sacrificed?

All I could do was lay there and cry. It was true. The only reason I put up with Mike was because I kept holding onto the thought that maybe one day he would be the man of my dreams. I turned my face toward the wall, ashamed to talk to my own family. Afraid of what they would think of a woman whose husband hit her for no apparent reason. It was my fault. I should never have gone into the house after the police left. He had already been provoked by Tom. I should have left well enough alone. Why did I do these things?

Do you know why people eventually stop marrying? Stop seeking companionship altogether? Hmmmm, do you?” “Because they grow cranky?” “No. If only it were that simple. It is because of trust. Trust, my dear, is like a fine piece of silver. It erodes over time and loses its luster. What was once precious and unique begins to rust and all at once becomes plain and tawdry, a thing to be ashamed of. Losing the ability to trust takes its toll on you. It is the heart rusting.

There was a time when my life seemed so painful to me that reading about the lives of other women writers was one of the few things that could help. I was unhappy, and ashamed of it; I was baffled by my life. For several years in my early thirties, I would sit in my armchair reading books about these other lives. Sometimes when I came to the end, I would sit down and read the book through from the beginning again. I remember an incredible intensity about all this, and also a kind of furtiveness—as if I were afraid that someone might look through the window and find me out. Even now, I feel I should pretend that I was reading only these women's fiction or their poetry—their lives as they chose to present them, alchemized as art. But that would be a lie. It was the private messages I really liked—the journals and letters, and autobiographies and biographies whenever they seemed to be telling the truth. I felt very lonely then, self-absorbed, shut off. I needed all this murmured chorus, this continuum of true-life stories, to pull me through. They were like mothers and sisters to me, these literary women, many of them already dead; more than my own family, they seemed to stretch out a hand.

I was born on an island, a very small island, twelve miles long and eight miles wide; yet when I left it at nineteen years of age I had never set foot on three-quarters of it. I had recently met someone who was born on the other side of the world from me but had visited this island on which my family had lived for generations; this person, a woman, had said to me, ‘What a beautiful place,’ and she named a village by the sea and then went on to describe a view that was unknown to me. At the time I was so ashamed I could hardly make a reply, for I had come to believe that people in my position in the world should know everything about the place they are from. I know this: it was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493; Columbus never set foot there but only named it in passing, after a church in Spain. He could not have known that he would have so many things to name, and I imagined how hard he had to rack his brain after he ran out of names honoring his benefactors, the saints he cherished, events important to him. A task like that would have killed a thoughtful person, but he went on to live a very long life.

I ask Daisy, “Why do you say you’re white? Are you ashamed of being mixed?” Daisy snaps back, “My mom is mixed but she doesn’t even say so. She’s only talked to me about it once. I’ve never met her Jamaican family, I’m not ashamed, but I have nothing to claim, nothing handed down to me. It’s not something people can see to look at me. Maybe if I’m with my mum, but I never am. On my own, I just look like a white girl with a tan. And that suits me just fine. I don’t want to explain myself to people. I’ve seen how you have to do it — how people ask you questions like they have the right to see your family tree. I don’t want that. I just want to be me.

But I sure as heck won’t admit any of that to Mark. I’ll probably be dining on Extra Crunchy Jif tonight, but at least I won’t have shamed my mama. Not that she would even be ashamed, but I know for a fact that she doesn’t like the neighborhood knowing our family business.

Not only was I embarrassed, frankly, I became offended, not to mention deeply ashamed. A nervousness entered my body and I thought for a moment that I was going to cry. After all, I had never seen that part of a grown man’s anatomy, and I suddenly found myself thinking about all the males in my family.

Sometimes I can even read you as well as you read me. You have no idea what you’re doing half the time. You have no idea who you are.” Perhaps not, Shea, but I know you are my lifemate. I could not harm you now. His face remained granite, his eyes dark and ice cold. She was right. He was dangerous. He knew it in his soul. His mind was not to be trusted. Her presence kept him tranquil, calm, but his mind was a maze of dark, deadly trails. He had no idea I he would be able to distinguish reality from nightmare if their delicately balanced world tilted in any way. His black eyes went a glittering obsidian, and he looked away from her, ashamed. He should allow her to leave, give her her freedom, but he could not. She was his only sanity his only path to the surface from the hellish nightmare he lived in. I have sworn to protect you, Shea. I can only promise it is in my heart to do so. Shea stepped away from the bed, suddenly close to tears. He was in a treacherous labyrinth; he walked a fine line between sanity and a world she did not want to try to comprehend. “I will protect you, Jacques. You have my solemn word, I won’t let you down. I’ll see you through this until you’re right again.” And then? His black gaze slid lazily over her. Do you intend to leave me, Shea? You save me, and then you think to desert me? There was a kind of dark humor in his voice, a secret amusement that stirred something in her she hadn’t known existed. Something that went beyond fear. Terror. Her chin tilted a little belligerently. “What does that mean? Of course I won’t desert you. I’ll stay with you and see you through this. We’ll find your family.” It was too late. Even if she attempted to put distance between them, she could not break their bond. His blood ran in her veins; his mind was familiar with the path to hers. Their souls called to one another. Hearts were following, and it was only matter of time before he possessed her body. Running would not save either of them. Jacques knew it with a certainty with which he knew few other things. But imparting the knowledge to her would frighten her more. His heart twisted, a funny somersault. His Shea feared death far less than she feared personal commitment. She really had no idea they were already bound together. She would need him, need him close, need him touching her in her mind, in her body. I feel your need to perform the human functions you seem to enjoy. Go bathe. I am in no hurry to have you examine my wounds.

In the years since, whenever I tell people the facts of my case, that I left my four-year-old son in the car for five minutes, that someone recorded me doing so and called the police, that this single decision I made and its ramifications played out in my family’s life over the course of two years—when I recount these facts to some new friend or family member, to a reporter or colleague or radio-show host, they all want to know the same thing. “How did you feel?” they ask me. “How did you feel when you realized what was happening?” It’s a simple enough question, yet it took me almost two years to answer it honestly. “I was scared,” I used to tell them. Or “I was shocked.” I would tell them I was angry or embarrassed or bewildered. And there was truth to all this. But the deeper truth was much worse. The deeper truth was that I felt as though I’d been caught doing something very bad, even if I didn’t understand what the bad thing was, exactly, or what the rationale was for its badness. I felt, I think, what just about every woman feels whenever someone attacks or criticizes her mothering. I felt angry. I felt embarrassed. But beneath all that, I felt ashamed.

Abby Ellin, author of the book Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married, told me there is often no way to tell who is duping us. “Almost everyone’s been duped at some point in their lives, and if they haven’t, they know someone who has. No one wants to talk about it because they’re so humiliated, but it’s part of the human experience. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even really smart people get duped! Sometimes smart people get duped more because they think they’re immune to it. Especially when it comes to love, we want to believe the best in people. We want to believe in the happily ever after, so we give the benefit of the doubt.

Dumbledore was the one who stuck up for me after Dad went. Got me the gamekeeper job...trusts people, he does. Gives 'em second chances...tha's what set him apar' from other Heads, see. He'll accept anyone at Hogwarts, s'long as they've got the talent. Knows people can turn out okay if their families weren'...well...all tha' respectable. But some don' understand that. There's some who'd always hold it against yeh....there's some who'd even pretend they just had big bones rather than stand up an' say - I am what I am, an' I'm not ashamed. 'Never be ashamed,' my ol' dad used ter say, ' there's some who'll hold it against you, but they're not worth botherin' with. An' he was right. I've bin an idiot. I'm not botherin' with her no more, I promise yeh that. Big bones...I'll give her big bones.

I've written about my father a lot, too, and while I am not ashamed of his flaws, I did think it was my right to focus on the parts that rang most true to me. It was my job as a firstborn son to protect him in death as I had been unable to do in life.

What she needed was the food, the cash. What she didn't need was my assumptions. Or to have to feel grateful, or that there was something to be ashamed of in seeking help. And maybe if we could admit that most women are poor, that many are struggling to feed themselves and their children or their other family members, we could start addressing this issue that affects most women with all the power it requires. We could stop acting like food insecurity is a sin or a shame for any individual and treat it rightfully like an indictment of our society.