Poor women. All this progress and they still can’t figure out how to have it all. Men aren’t much better off. After nearly half a century on this earth, I’m still paying for the one kid I’ve got.

Ten minutes later Amy and I kiss each other goodbye as if we were a longtime married couple parting to go to our respective jobs.

I start my day with a win when the plaintiff in my Municipal Court hearing is a no-show. When I hit the office, the mail has already arrived. There amid the collection of professional garbage I find an envelope with my daughter’s handwriting, an event which usually signals some internal struggle being waged. I take it back to my office and close the door and sit down, prepared for the latest installment.

February 25

Dear Dad, I sent this letter to the office, because I didn’t know whether you were in your new house. I know you’re thinking: Oh, God, what is wrong with her now, since I hardly ever write. Nothing really is, but I just wanted to describe to you some things that have been happening to me, and when I tell you on the phone sometimes I never can say what I’m trying to.

After I got back to school in January, I joined an AIDS Care team through one of the churches in Fayetteville. A friend of mine whose brother died of AIDS got me interested, and I went through the training on the Sunday before Martin Luther King’s birthday. What we are is kind of a support group for people with AIDS, or PWAS as they are called. We do all kinds of stuff for the two assigned to our team, and some things

I’m discovering I’m not very good at doing.

These guys really are dying, even though one of them is still doing okay.

“Larry” (we’re supposed to protect their anonymity) is sort of our healthy one.