Be Auntie told her to forgive them, that beat-down people did beat-down things. Toil made them hot and cruel, but mostly hot, and sometimes the best a woman could do was be a sip of water. That was how Puah knew that Be Auntie could never be her real mother, no matter how many lullabies sung or pains rocked. Her real mother would never ask her to be a sacrifice to ungrateful, nonreciprocal fools. Her real mother wouldn’t baby every boy no matter how grown and chastise every girl no matter how sweet.
