Lilah was never a good vomiter. Her whole family avoided the process, opting instead to suffer through the clutches of stomach cramps until the problem descended into their intestines, where they were all more comfortable about the issue.

Of course she had no memory of spitting up as a baby, but she had a younger brother who was capable of projectile vomiting, according to her mom. Lilah must have heard a hundred times how Sam only quit the disgusting habit at two, after their mother made him lie in it for all of one nap time.

She did have a memory of being sick in school. She was in fifth grade and her mother’s father was visiting from Florida. He took them all to a fancy place and Lilah ate something wrong. She said she was unwell the next morning but her mother didn’t listen. She declared that Lilah would feel better if she just got up and moved herself, dammit, and she made her go to school anyway. Immediately after the class said the pledge of allegiance, as she took her seat at the corner of the six square desks arrayed like a rectangle, three facing three, Lilah’s stomach clenched and sent its contents exploding up her throat, burning past her teeth and all over the desks.

Her problem then was compound. She was ill. She was lastingly humiliated by her seatmates’ grossed-out reactions (She’d forever be able replay “Eewwww, Mr. Tucker, Lilah barfed!”). She was escorted to the school nurse by the teacher’s pet, a short girl named Betsy who made her feel hulking and ugly as well as sick.

Her mother came for her and felt so bad about sending her to school that she rubbed Lilah’s back and let her have as much ginger ale as she wanted. But regurgitation remained a distasteful experience. Lilah learned to battle any nausea to a salivating stalemate. She must have refused that form of relief a dozen times as an adult. She didn’t want it herself and didn’t understand it in others. When her seven-year old stepdaughter threw up on the back steps, Lilah looked for a dietary cause. That was early in 1990, when they all knew the family was done – the last time she saw little Polly, showing her the house. The child puked all over the classic brick steps and it wasn’t until 1996, one morning vacuuming, catching sight of bright pink under the sunroom baseboard, digging out a cheap plastic barrette, Polly’s, that Lilah finally understood that puke.