I was an only child. An adopted child is more beloved than a biological one. I was treated like an emperor. I had a fine upbringing, like a prince.

I’m a lone wolf, unmarried…and not rich….I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don’t like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I’m a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers and sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens…nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.

I’m an only child, so logically I gave birth to my parents, because if it weren’t for me they wouldn’t be parents at all, they’d simply be a married couple. (Or maybe without me they wouldn’t even have been married!)

My obsession with wolves hadn't helped past relationships. I had split up with Jan, the mother of my four children, after 11 years together, but there was never any animosity; it was more a case of separation by default. Maybe I never gave that relationship a chance. I was so passionate about wolves that I wonder whether any human relationship could have come close. If I'd had to choose between spending a night in the wolf enclosure or at home, I would probably have chosen the wolves.

I am an orphan, alone: nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.

"One of the first things that connected us was that we were both orphans’"

I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a fish, or fell like a white stone from heaven. In woods and mountains I roam, but I am hidden in the innermost soul of man. I am mortal for everyone, yet I am not touched by the cycle of aeons.

When we got married, you didn't even want kids. It was... you and me.

In an ideal world, we would have been orphans. We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents.

Because I wasn't told that I was adopted until I was twenty, I lacked a vocabulary to describe who I am and where I come from, so performing and writing became ways to make myself up.

The old couple were childless — they had only a married daughter living in Brooklyn.

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.

I went from being an aunt, having a mom, and being a child to not having a mom, becoming a mom, and raising my own child.

I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.