For eight years, my parents made me leave whenever my brother’s fiancée visited. “She’s from a g0od family. Don’t embarrass us,” Mom said. So 0ne weekend, I disappeared for good. Four years later, they finally discovered where I’d gone.

I packed a faded duffel bag, left through the side door, and spent the weekend somewhere else.

A cheap motel.

A twenty-four-hour diner.

Sometimes my car.

Anywhere but home.

According to my mother, Eleanor Dunaway, my presence was dangerous to the family image.

When I was eighteen, I had spent two weeks receiving psychiatric treatment for severe depression.

To me, it had been the hardest period of my life.