Not because Maya spent money, but because my mother would call me, and lie, and spin her stories, and I would take my anger out on my daughter.

I remembered, then, a phone conversation from two years before.

Evelyn had insisted, that time, that Maya had spent two hundred dollars on video games, and I had called Maya in a rage.

“Do you have any idea how hard I work to send that money?” I had shouted at her.

“Dad, I didn’t—” “No excuses!” And I had slammed the phone down on my own child.

Remembering that moment, standing in that counselor’s office, made me want to tear my own skin off.