Kiara Alegría Hudes

You know, the book came out a few months ago, and the more time and distance I am separated from its active writing, the more I'm reflecting on it.

And I almost started to cry when you asked the question because it makes me emotional that April is this antihero.

She's done the unthinkable.

She's left her child.

And we know that from the beginning.

It's not a spoiler.

But what the book doesn't detail as much because it's just a given is that she didn't leave her child.

She stayed with her child.

When she was pregnant as a high schooler, as a teenager, the dad saw that and wanted no part of it and he took off.

So she actually made it – she's the one that made the decision to stay.

And I wonder if even me writing the story of her leaving and not the story of her staying did her a slight disservice.

But I don't think so.

I think that she has this message to give to her estranged daughter, who she left when she was 10 years old.

And she wants this daughter to know, look, I stayed for 10 years, but here's what it's like to be a woman who takes her life into her own hands.

and who has agency.

And maybe I waited too long to learn these lessons.

Maybe you can learn these lessons a little bit sooner.

I have told you about these ten days, Noé, hoping some of it might be useful as you determine what kind of woman to be.

We are stuck with the project of becoming ourselves, a task we ignore to our great peril.

Do not absolve me.