And it began with a mother gripping a steering wheel in a parking lot, listening to her baby blame herself, and vowing that she would not let that be the story her daughter learned about her own worth.

Chapter 4 — You Know How Mom Gets

Luca came running out of the banquet a minute later — and I noticed, even in the chaos of it, that he kept glancing back over his shoulder toward the room, toward his mother, as though the woman he had left standing there mattered more than the terrified child strapped into our car.

“You need to come back inside, Jessi,” he said.

“You humiliated my mom in front of everybody.”