She was mine and I was hers Gambled hard and split the purse A patient and her patient nurse She was mine and I was hers Chapter One: Wild Animal Some of the damage caused by my mother, Gloria, scorched the earth, and sometimes those who adored her wished we’d never known her, wished we’d never even been born. I adored her, but to adore her, one had to figuratively roll one’s eyes at about half her declarations, especially when they were slurred. One had to figuratively shrug one’s shoulders in a gesture like “That’s our Gloria,” though only in response to a benign destruction. Only when she was just telling white lies or asking to borrow money while joking that she’d never pay it back. “I never, ever imagined myself with kids,” she said once. “I know, you hate it when I talk about having you -- you think I sound too objective when I talk about how much it hurt to give birth and all the drugs they had to give me and everything like that. But ju...