Faulty Genes by Rebecca Cohen
Extract from Vivian Miller’s journal, 2nd June:
All of us are products of our genes. My frizzy hair and myopic vision give me away as my father’s daughter. Another twist of the double helix gave me my maternal grandmother’s nose. And let’s not forget the bad joints and fiery tempers that all of us Millers suffer from.
But it was my mother’s genetics that damned me with this thing from which I can’t escape, against which I will always have to struggle. I understand now what she went through. I can sympathise, but I don’t think I’ll ever really forgive her for how she acted when we were children. And now I’m older, though arguably no wiser, I doubt that I’ll fare any better than she did. Some days are just too long, too lonely and too dark to carry on.
