“Because it was an accident, Rachel,” my mother said, her sharp, commanding tone creeping back in beneath the softness.

“We don’t need government agencies barging into our private family lives over a spilled pan.”

“It says I can never again report anything she does to Emma,” I said.

“Why would you need to report anything if we’re working this out as a family?” my mother asked, setting her mug down on the wooden table with a hard click.

I picked up the four-page document, folded it in half, and shoved it across the table into my mother’s mug of tea, sloshing hot water over the rim.

“Get out of my house, Mom,” I told her.