title: What If?: A Woman's Journey Toward Conquering the Burden of Incest
author: Cheryl Miles-Stevenson
description: Dr. Cheryl Miles-Stevenson is the daughter of the late Bettye Jean Miles and the late Dave Willis Miles of Yazoo City, Mississippi. She was born on July 20, 1966, and is the youngest of three children. She received her childhood education in the Yazoo City Public Schools, graduating from Yazoo City High School in 1984. She was the first National Achievement Scholar to attend Rust College, Holly Springs, Mississippi, where she received a bachelor of science degree in biology (summa cum laude) in 1987. She also earned a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy (cum laude) from Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, in 1990; a master of science degree in pharmaceutics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1992; and a doctor of philosophy degree in pharmaceutics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1996. Upon doing so, she became the first African American female to receive a PhD in the natural sciences from the University of Michigan. Dr. Stevenson has worked in the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries since 1996 as a formulation development scientist. Dr. Stevenson is a member of several civic and professional organizations including the NAACP, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, Opelika Athletic Booster Club, and the Psi Gamma Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. Dr. Stevenson is an active member of Bowen United Methodist Church, in Tuskegee, Alabama, where she has assumed active roles in the church including youth ministries, lay servant ministries, and the trustee board. Dr. Stevenson is married to her husband of nineteen years, Senta D. Stevenson, and they have two sons-Darian, sixteen, and Jordan, fourteen. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, and watching sports.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  Ariana Harwicz
  
  DIE, MY LOVE
  
  Translated by  
  Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff
  
  ![](images/00004.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I lay back in the grass among fallen trees and the sun on my palm felt like a
  knife I could use to bleed myself dry with one swift cut to the jugular.
  Behind me, against the backdrop of a house somewhere between dilapidated and
  homely, I could hear the voices of my son and my husband. Both of them naked.
  Both of them splashing around in the blue paddling pool, the water thirty-five
  degrees. It was the Sunday before a bank holiday. I was a few steps away,
  hidden in the underbrush. Spying on them. How could a weak, perverse woman
  like me, someone who dreams of a knife in her hand, be the mother and wife of
  those two individuals? What was I going to do? I burrowed deeper into the
  ground, hiding my body. I wasn’t going to kill them. I dropped the knife and
  went to hang out the washing like nothing had happened. I carefully pegged the
  socks to the line, my baby’s and my man’s. Th