By Shannon Sanders, Illustrations by Anna Schuleit Haber
September 11, 2023
Here was Cyrus at the door on a Saturday, unannounced and with a leather duffel hanging from each arm, asking to crash for a night or two—three at absolute most.
I once asked my mother, a well-educated, exceedingly competent woman, why she served as someone’s assistant for the majority of her professional life, yet always took a leadership role in volunteer organizations (president of the PTA and director of nearly every church committee on which she’s ever served, for example). Her response was unequivocal: “Your grandmother always told me that I would never be anything other than a secretary.” Mothers—“They fuck you up,” Philip Larkin wrote. “They may not mean to, but they do.”
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