This is to thank you for everything you've done.

I stopped calling you mother four days ago. New years eve. Thank you for spoiling it, by the way. I was asleep, jetlagged from the eight hour time difference between London and San Francisco. I didn't even know about any phone call until one of the kids woke me up, telling me that Dad wanted to talk to me in the kitchen. I stumbled down the 38 stairs from my attic bedroom and managed to carry my still sleeping body to the kitchen. Thanks for allowing me the time to myself that I'm always begging for.

"Your mother can't afford to have you and Joanna and Garrick. She says that she wants you to stay here, with me. You'll still fly home on Monday, but once you get there, you'll just be packing."

It had always been my choice where and who I lived with. That's one of the things I liked best about the divorce. I could live in California with you, or London with dad and his new wife. I was never shuttled back and forth across a continent and an ocean unless I missed the other parent. In retrospect, that's probably because you were too lazy to get a job and pay your half of the airplane fares. But I was too young to know about the angry long distance phone calls, or the other man. Thanks for including me in all those life changing discussions you made about me.

I can't blame you for marrying Jerry. You two were together for quite awhile. You have crappy taste in men. But, you didn't know about him beforehand. You didn't know he was more interested in me than you. You didn't know that he preferred nights wrapped up in my electric blanket, rather than yours. You didn't know that the condom wrappers on my floor were his. I was only 11. I had no use for them. Jerry took my virginity and I took the blame. Thanks for your trust in me.

You and I have been through so much. And now you want to rob me of my friends, my loves, my life in America, and my opportunity to choose.

Thanks.

Thanks for nothing,