I did not raise my voice.

I have learned, in the time since, that the most damning thing you can do to a person who believes they are righteous is simply give them room to explain themselves.

My mother did not need much room.

She told me, with the calm of complete conviction, that a child who is not taught discipline about her body becomes an adult who cannot control it, and that she was doing my daughter a kindness I was too soft to provide.

She told me it was the same thing she had done for Lowell and me, and that we had turned out fine, hadn’t we — successful, married, thin.

She said the word thin like a diploma.