Hillbilly Elegy

be without them? I think back on my
freshman year of high school, a grade I
nearly failed, and the morning when
Mom walked into Mamaw’s house
demanding a cup of clean urine. Or years
before that, when I was a lonely kid with
two fathers, neither of whom I saw very
often, and Papaw decided that he would
be the best dad he could be for as long
as he lived. Or the months I spent with
Lindsay, a teenage girl acting as a
mother while our own mother lived in a
treatment center. Or the moment I can’t
even remember when Papaw installed a
secret phone line in the bottom of my toy
box so that Lindsay could call Mamaw
and Papaw if things got a little too crazy.