You are not a burden, Rosa Martinez.

You have never once in your life been a burden.” And a tear tracked down through the fine lines around her eyes, and I felt a fierce, protective rage rise up in me — not at her, never at her, but at myself, and at my ambition, and at the whole cruel machinery of a world that had taught my mother, and teaches so many women, that needing care makes you a nuisance, and that the highest form of love is to suffer in silence rather than inconvenience the people you are suffering for.

Chapter 11 — I Don’t Know

We called an ambulance that night, over her protests, and in the bright hard light of the emergency room the triage nurses began firing questions at me that I could not answer.