“I am her mother,” she says firmly, though there is a hitch in her voice and her face colors. “You are a guest,” she says before she sweeps out of the room, and I find it very rich, to have been invited here partly on the absurd presumption that I would know what to do with Akila simply because we are both Black, and now be rebuffed when I have not performed the role of the Trusty Black Spirit Guide to her taste.
