I was standing in my aunt’s kitchen. She was in the laundry room, the washing machine was filling with water, and she said it the way you’d mention the weather. “Probably because he’s not your real dad.”

I’m Rebecca Cousineau, and that afternoon is where my memoir starts.

I have an eighth-grade education. I started out cleaning apartment hallways to pay my rent and I finished as the vice president of a property management company. I lost my children to the state once and got them back. I spent twenty years fighting to keep my daughter alive. I found my father’s family in Harlan, Kentucky, years after he went to his grave denying I was his.

The book is called No Destination. Just Forward. This newsletter is where I tell the parts that didn’t fit in it, and what it’s like to write your own life down at this age with an eighth-grade education and a lot of nerve.

If you’ve ever had to start over from nothing, more than once, you’ll recognize yourself here.

Thank you for being here from the very beginning.

Rebecca