Hillbilly Elegy

kindergarten classmate made fun of her
umbrella, I punched him in the face.
When I watched her succumb again and
again to addiction, I hated her and
wished sometimes that she would take
enough narcotics to rid me and Lindsay
of her for good. When she lay sobbing in
bed after another failed relationship, I
felt a rage that could have driven me to
kill.
Toward the end of law school,
Lindsay called to tell me that Mom had
taken to a new drug—heroin—and had
decided to give rehab another try. I
didn’t know how many times Mom had
been to rehab, how many nights she’d
spent in the hospital barely conscious