“They were the most important things he owned.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Giselle.” She rounded on me, reaching for the weapon that had always worked.

“You have exaggerated every little thing and looked down your nose at this family ever since you put on that uniform.

You think you’re so much better than the rest of us.”

For most of my life, that exact sentence had done its work on me.

My mother knew, with a precision that took my breataway when I saw it at last, how to reach into me and turn the smallest reasonable boundary I set into proof that I was cold, and arrogant, and cruel.