And my mother, who is not a large woman, stood up in her own kitchen and said:

“That’s exactly it. That’s the whole thing and you just said it out loud.”

“What?”

“You want to *settle up.*” She was shaking. “You want us to be even, so you can stop being somebody’s daughter and start being a person who doesn’t owe anybody anything. I know why. I know exactly why, and it’s because the first man who ever did your arithmetic decided you came out negative.
“But I don’t want to be even with you, Emily.” Her voice cracked straight down the middle. “Even people leave. Even people are square and they go home. I didn’t sell that house to make a loan.”

I said the cruelest true thing I have ever said to her.

“You told me I’d never be a burden in your house,” I said. “Then you sold the house.”