She could have left it blank; unmarried mothers leave it blank constantly, and in New York and in North Carolina a father’s name does not go on a birth certificate without his acknowledgment anyway, so it had no legal effect at all.

She wrote it in a box on an intake form that nobody would ever read.

I asked her why.

And she said: “Because a nurse asked me a question and I was not going to lie to a nurse about who my children’s father was.”

Part Sixteen: Six Years

Here is what my daughters’ first six years actually consisted of, in the flat version, because the sentimental version helps nobody.

Four addresses. The spare room in Charlotte for fourteen months.