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Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the editors of the following publications in which the chapters listed first appeared, sometimes in different forms: Blackbird: “The Queen of Hearts” and “Southbound ,” Spring 2007 and Fall 2007, respectively; Creative NonFiction , “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” 1992; Image, “Faith, Hope, and Charity,” Fall 2007; Southern Review, “Catechism,” Fall 2007. I would like to thank early readers of this manuscript, especially Joanne Barkan, who read chapter by chapter as the book evolved and whose comments and encouragement were essential. Grateful thanks also to Mary Flinn, Louis D. Rubin Jr., Shannon Ravenel, and especially to my husband, David McKain. And praise be for Beverly Jarrett at the University of Missouri Press! I am also grateful to my fine editor, Jane Lago, for her comments and insights. Whenever I was in Richmond over the last decade, I would have had no “home place” without my good friends Ellen Williams, Tina Lewis, and Mary Flinn; my cousin Anne Simmons; and my cousin Leigh Doyle—all of whom opened their homes and their hearts, told me their stories, and made the long journey home one we shared together. I would also like to thank the staff of The Chesterfield at Brandermill Woods for their care of my parents and my sister: especially Holly DeJarnette, Tracy Daniels, Kim Able, Cindy M., Cindy D., Bonna, James and Helen Thompson, Susie West, Tara, Katedra , Linda, Florence, Barnsy, Carolyn, Irene, and Patsina. Thanks also to Linda Call and Vic Harper for their invaluable help to my family over the years. I would also like to acknowledge with love and gratitude my favorite aunts, Louise Doyle Fultz and Billie Ferguson Poag, who told me family stories and showed me photographs. None of the characters in this memoir are fictional; however, some names have been changed. ix Above all, he thought of his childhood, and the more calmly he recalled it, the more unfinished it seemed. . . . To take the past upon him once more, and this time really, was the reason why, from the midst of his estrangement, he returned home. We don’t know whether he stayed there; we only know that he came back. —Rainer Maria Rilke T h e P r o d i g a l Daughter ...

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