Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg is not a linear narrative, it circles back to loss--both Rapp Black and Kahlo are amputees--but the the loss here is not that simple.

If it’s true that for daughters growing up in a patriarchal culture, there is a feeling of having to choose between being empowered and being loved, I had chosen the loneliness of empowerment. Mother wound: aisle five.

I told him he should leave. When what I wanted so badly, what I would have given anything for would have been for him to say, I want to stay.

Then came the bushes planted along the side of my home—neatly, legally, and well within my property line. To be sure, I hired two independent surveyors.