I had not given it a second thought.

That was my mistake, the one I own, the one I will carry: I trusted the words family takes care of family because they were said in my mother’s voice, and I did not stop to ask what my mother meant by family, or by care.

Their version of those words, I was about to learn, was closer to armed robbery than to anything I had understood by them.

But that is the thing about a well-said lie from someone you love.

It does not sound like a lie.

It sounds like home.