Nonfiction | March 01, 1989

On March 1, 1968, I flew to New York City to attend a one-day conference/speak-out for “fit” mothers who had lost custody in courts.In twenty years I had not met another woman whose “case” resembled mine. All the divorced women I knew had custody of their children, and never was that custody seriously challenged.

Eleven o’clock. Olivia sleeps with her head in my lap, Tony asleep in the backseat. I turn on the radio and for the first time I listen for news of a mother with two children, last seen in Berkeley, California, at 9:20 p.m., Thursday evening, August 12.

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