The words came slowly, haltingly, the words of a child who has learned that speaking is dangerous.

And then, once they started, the lies my mother had fed her for five years began to pour out of her.

My mother had told Maya that I was sick of supporting her.

That her mother’s cancer treatment had wiped out all my savings, and that every dollar spent on Maya was a dollar that deepened my ruin.

That no woman would ever marry me, because no man wants to raise a motherless teenager.

That Maya therefore needed to cost as little as humanly possible, so that she would not be a burden that drove me away entirely.