I’m the youngest of five children; I have four older sisters. There’s a story in my family, at least it’s the story three of my four sisters tell, that my parents wanted two children, a daughter and a son. And having had a daughter the first time around, they kept on trying, having children until they got their wishes, their longed-for son, and then stopped. Of course, that’s not the end of the story, the end of our family mythology, because what lies behind that story is a perception that there were two favored children, three who were not. But given the reality of the world, there was really just one favored child, me, the only son.

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