I had been living inside a lie so kindly told that I had mistaken it for my mother’s happiness.

The rage would come, and it would be useful, and I would put it to work.

But the first thing, the thing underneath everything that followed, was simply the sorrow of a daughter realizing how alone her mother had been while she wasn’t looking.

Chapter 4 — Why Are You Cleaning Like This?

I held her at arm’s length and I made myself look, really look, at all the things I had been too shocked to take in at once.

The knees of her borrowed trousers, soaked through and filthy.