Summary

The first chapter of part three is titled “aches.” In present-tense narration, author Doyle describes how, when she was a child, she used to stop herself from feeling too many loving feelings about her cat, her grandmother, or her mother. This, she says, was because there was always an Ache [sic] associated with that love, the Ache of knowing that their lives would end and the relationship and connection would end as well. She describes the Ache as one of the feelings that she fought so hard to suppress with bulimia and addiction, and then comments that when she found out she was pregnant in the middle of an alcoholic episode, she realized that in spite of the Ache, she wanted to be that baby’s mother, and needed to be sober in order to do so. At the time, she adds, she...