She was sixty-odd years old with knees that could barely carry her, cooking a roast in a sweltering room with my crying child strapped to her back, while two able-bodied adults ate grapes in the air conditioning fifteen feet away.

“Mom,” I said.

“What are you doing.”

Chapter 3 — Everything’s Fine, Odalys

She flinched like I’d caught her doing something wrong.

That was the thing that would stay with me longest — that my mother, seeing me, looked guilty.