She protested until the afternoon I finally cut her off, gently, with the only argument that ever silenced her.

“Mom,” I said.

“I have a mother.” She stopped.

She looked at me.

And she never argued about being cared for again, because I had finally told her, in three words, the thing she had spent her whole life doing for me and had never once let me do for her.

Chapter 16 — That Night

One sunny afternoon, a few weeks later, my mother sat on our back patio watching Maya crawl across a blanket in the grass, and I sat down beside her and set a cup of warm tea in her lap, and I said, “Mom, we need to talk about that night.”

“We’ve already talked about it, Laura.”