Auntie C—,

I’ll say right out front that when you were 30 and I was 19, you were absolutely the coolest person I knew. I’m saying it true because much of what follows is substanitally more harsh. However, none of it changes that ancient and happy fact.

Phone tag worked out the way it was supposed to, I think.

I had a long conversation about you with my Mom, your sister.

You already know that she’s grown to hate everything you’ve become, and that she’s refusing your calls.

At the heart of her indictment against you is her assertion that thousands of dollars which our late beloved D— intended to be distributed to her nieces and nephews somehow found its way not to them, but into the coffers of your wingnut church.

And, that you justified it by saying that she was a millionaire, so neither she nor her kids, including me, needed the money. Or maybe Jesus just needed it worse.

I don’t know how much of that is true, and I DON’T CARE either, so please don’t try to set the record straight with ME. (I will note, though, that she never had the kind of money you thought she did, and whatever she had, I personally have never been rich for one day of my life. So if you have my five grand left over somehow, I will sure as shit take it now, no questions asked.)

The bottom line is that this is between you and her, and needs to be sorted at that level. I have, regrettably, nothing to say to you until then, besides this, because my first loyalty must be to she who bore me.

She suggested at one point that she would be open to a letter from you, instead of the repeated attempts to get to her directly and obliquely by phone.

So write her, and set the record straight over there, if it can be done.

I will pray sincerely to my own false pagan gods that it all works out in the end.

Much love to you,

Alejandro