My mother dropped into a chair, struck her chest, and began to weep — loudly, theatrically — crying that she had sacrificed her whole youth to raise her children alone, that Amina had poisoned my mind against her.

For my entire life that particular crying had broken me.

It did not break me now.

I had seen that performance a thousand times, and I knew every note of it, because it had governed my whole life.

The tears would come, and the story of her sacrifice, and the accusation that whoever had upset her was an ungrateful betrayer — and always, always, I had folded, apologized, done whatever was required to make the crying stop, because the crying was unbearable to me in a way I had never questioned.

This time I watched it as though from a distance, and for the first time I saw it clearly for what it was: not grief, but a tool.