While tracing my own roots, I came upon a discovery which my heart would never know how to rectify. The only child born in our family on August 13, 1925, was a girl named Esther Mae. Not Louise, the only name I had known my mother to be called. We struggled together, me and "Momsie," as I called her, navigating a cruel world; her trying to hold and isolate me in fear and protection, and me always a degree disconnected in rebellion. During those...