She was right, and it was the one accusation I could not deflect onto Evelyn.

My mother had severed our communication, yes.

But no one had forced me to stay away for five years.

No one had forced me to accept, every time, my mother’s account of a daughter I never bothered to visit and see for myself.

And then Maya began, quietly, to list the moments I had missed, and each one landed like a blow.

Her middle school graduation.