She just sat there smiling that very beautiful and also very sad and understanding smile and what she did, in part by doing nothing, was let me hear how my upset was not self-evident, how my rage at my mom’s failure to “protect” you from the video or my rage that stealing the painting was to her mind the worst thing she’d ever done had not yet been integrated into a coherent narrative. Sima made a space for me to hear that there were depths beneath what I was saying that I hadn’t sounded yet.
