Not even law school could change the fact that I was trash. The truth had never been as clear to me as it was one afternoon in estates class. During my second attempt at a Juris Doctorate, I doodled geometric designs in my notebook while the professor paced the front of the room. He was lecturing about the rules of consanguinity—how property passes after one’s death. I had little to offer in any discussion of property—or family—for that matter. After my mother’s death six years earlier, her kids, Chrissy, Philip, and I, had to scrounge for the money to have her body cremated. That wasn’t in the rules. Likewise, my mother’s siblings had to do the same for their mother, who died just a few days after mine.

My thoughts were interrupted by Professor Conlin’s voice, his words so entirely out of place, I was sure I had been mistaken. “White trash,” he said. My head snapped up. I waited for more. “Yes,” he said. “Even white trash has to adhere to the rules.” The comedic example that followed included a trailer, loud white beer-drinking men, women who weren’t afraid to fight, and dirty, barefoot kids. Although my family was a different brand of trash, we fit the description in our own way. And as we’d never owned property, I would’ve gladly accepted the hereditary gift of a trailer over debt.

Rationally, I knew Conlin didn’t know anything about my history; nobody did. Still, I was sure he’d looked directly at me while turning the phrase. Several of my classmates laughed at the professor’s illustration. As good as I’d gotten at pretending, I couldn’t even crack a smile. I stayed frozen. I wondered how they’d respond if they knew they were laughing at me—that my mother was a junkie, that I’d been on my own since myearly teens, and that I learned how to make money by doing things with men. I considered getting up for a pretend trip to the bathroom—I really needed a cigarette—but that was a sure way to draw attention. Instead, I kept my gaze fixed at the front of the room, afraid my shaky hands or red-hot face would give me away. With my back erect, and hands folded on the table, I sat quietly in my chair, willing the stillness to render me as invisible as it had when I was a kid.

My classmates probably had it easy, I thought. They likely came from money, had families who cared, and parents who didn’t abandon them. Of course, we had some things in common—we’d all been presented to the world in one way or another. Some students might have had traditions like the coming out party or quinceañera. Although my family didn’t have anything like that, I, too, had undoubtedly been introduced to society. But, because my parents and other family were absent during my transition into womanhood, my Aunt Julie alone made the introductions.