A couple of months ago my mother called. She sounded quiet and sad, which does not usually match her energy as someone as bright as the sun and always ready for a brand new day.

At first she brushed it off, but as I kept insisting she finally opened up. She told me she had had a blue day and had fallen into a rabbit hole thinking about her past, about a previous version of herself. This was a version marked by vulnerability and ache, where she believed her life amounted to little besides being a mother.

It felt strange hearing her speak like that; those were memories she usually protected us from. But one sentence stayed with me: “Of all the things your dad has done to me, this is the one thing I will never forgive or forget.”