my best life 07.10.17.1204P

and insisted that the boy’s body be transferred to the
morgue immediately.
My father went with the doctor to assist with the transfer
and left my mother alone in her room lying on the bed.
A few minutes later another family came in with a new
baby. Though a curtained partition had separated my
mother from the celebration just a few feet away, the pain
of hearing joy and the sound of that baby was almost too
much to bear. She fell into a depression that lasted several
months.
By 1966, my parents moved to Las Vegas, NV and my
mother was ready to have another child. She was 38, and
not wanting to risk another tragic loss, they both decided
to apply for adoption.
The year before, in May of 1965, I was born to a single
mother with a child in Boulder City, NV. My biological
mother’s name was Diana. She had met my biological
father, James, while she was working as a keno writer in
one of the local casinos.
James was abusive, and when Diana was eight months
pregnant with me, James beat her almost aborting the
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