Not cruelly.

That is what I need to get across.

Nobody was unkind to that child.

My own mother said it.

My sister said it.

Neighbors said it.

Teachers who had never met Maren said you must look like your mom, because a child who does not look like the parent in the room is going to hear that sentence four hundred times.

My aunt Perpetua said, at a birthday party in 2015, with real affection, while pinching that girl’s cheek: Ay, this one is her mother all over again.