I want to be honest about that guilt reflex, because it is the truest thing in this whole story and the hardest thing I ever beat.

For thirty-four years, my mother had a button she could press, and pressing it had never once failed. You’re my daughter.

Family is family.

After everything I did for you. It did not matter what the offense was — a boundary I’d set, a loan I’d declined, a holiday I’d wanted to spend my own way — the button would go down and the guilt would come up in me, automatic as a reflex, and I would fold.

I had folded my entire life.

I had paid my sister’s debts out of that guilt.