At My Parents’ Anniversary Party, One Insult—and One Letter—Changed Everything

didn’t work. What if I try…?” And then she tried again.

Failure didn’t seem to scare her the way reading tests once had. Maybe it was because, for the first time, she was failing on her own terms, in pursuit of something she cared about deeply.

One evening, I found her sitting on the garage floor surrounded by crumpled papers and half-assembled contraptions,continue reading …