Chapter One
It wasn't always like this. We used to have wonderful times. There were times
when I felt as if I had won two prizes: my two children walking up the road with
me. My girl. My boy. Living together in Maine.
There were times when our world seemed perfectly balanced. Later it's easy to
remember, when you're mad at yourself and furious with how things came out, to
remember only yelling in the kitchen on a winter night and feeling overwhelmed
at the office. But I have to remember, too, the happy times when we were all
tucked up in bed reading Mary Poppins on a winter evening. When we were
at the beach with Cynthia and Bea and Sam in summer. When Augusta and I were
looking at catalogues together on the green couch while Jack was building
buildings in the dining room.
Those things are all true, too.
*
I raised the kids alone. Their dad and I divorced when they were little, split
up when they were two and three and got divorced a year later. When people ask
me why we got divorced I say I don't think you have to explain why people get
divorced. I think you have to explain how people stay married. How ... read full excerpt from: Augusta, Gone: A True Story ebook
