When I was five years old, my aunt Marie sat me down at her kitchen table, slid a plate of toast in front of me, and told me something that shaped my whole life.
“Your mother ran away,” she said, like she was commenting on the weather. “A normal woman doesn’t abandon her child, Alma.”
I remember staring at the jelly packet in my hand because I did not know what else to look at. I remember my uncle Ray chewing bacon like none of this was strange. I remember thinking that if I cried, I would somehow prove I was too much trouble.
So I didn’t cry.
That sentence followed me for years. Sometimes Marie said it when I forgot to rinse my cereal bowl, when I needed money for a school trip, and for no reason at all.
“Be grateful we took you in.”
“Your mother didn’t want you.”