She grew up bright and kind and watchful, far more observant than a child her age had any right to be, the way children often are when it has been just them and one tired parent against the world.

She noticed things.

She noticed the strain in my face when the bills came, and she noticed the way I went quiet at certain questions, and as the years went by, the questions she asked grew harder and harder for me to turn aside.

She was, from very early on, the kind of person who wanted to understand the truth of things, who would rather have a hard fact than a comfortable silence.

I did not know, then, how much that quality of hers would one day cost me, and how much it would one day give back.