It would have been, in a rough sense, just.

And I did not do it, and my refusal to do it went deeper than mere caution.

It went to the heart of what I needed this whole ordeal to be.

Because I had spent my whole life being told that I was the problem.

The parasite.

The ungrateful daughter.

The one who took and took.

My mother’s entire power over me had rested on her ability to make me doubt myself, to make me wonder whether I really was selfish, whether my grievances were real, whether I was the villain she said I was.