Who is Mary McCoy as noted in the memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me?

The author's half-sister and half-first cousin, Mary was the child of rape. Due to the 13-year gap in age, the author considered Mary as more of a maternal figure as opposed to a sibling. Described as "even more beautiful than our gorgeous mother, Mary was a charming and random presence in my life" (5), much of her randomness and charm was the result of her drug and alcohol addictions. These additions also contributed to her death at only 27 years old when a trailer-house fire started during a party while Mary and her husband, Steve McCoy, had been drunkenly passed out in the back bedroom unable to escape.

At 15, Mary gave birth to a daughter, who she then gave to the author's aunt Inez to raise, as Mary was unable to raise the child on her own. Her adopted father lived in Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation and she alternated between living with him and the author's family.