did for this family.”
She believed it.
That is what makes it sad.
I could see all the way back through the sentence to a twenty-four-year-old woman in a pawn shop placing her own wedding ring beneath the glass to pay her parents’ rent.
Learning what she thought daughters were for.
I stopped.
One arm holding the granddaughter she had traded for a story.
Then I answered quietly.
“Being needed is not the same as being loved, Mom. I hope one day somebody loves you for free.”
Her face changed
