This is what matters to me: No matter what, I will live in a way that honors what people create.
— Mark Doty
Jerry Stern was my writing professor. He had a bad thumbnail, a giant, milky moonstone at the end of his right hand. To me his molting bluish nail was magical, wizardly, as though he could tell the future with it. I wanted a blue-moonstone fingernail; I wanted to see the future.
I was nineteen years old when I met Jerry Stern, and for a decade I secretly pretended that he was my real father. I wanted to grow up to be just like him: college teacher, book author, with my own office. I didn’t dare think it possible. Pretending to be related to him already felt transgressive.
