American slang like “don’t have a cow, man.” Once, she beat me for half an hour with her tennis racket for opening the plastic covering on her People magazine after it arrived in the mail. Sometimes the beatings would be mild—she’d use her hands, chopsticks, my toys. Other times she would whale on me with a plastic ruler or a bamboo cane until it broke, and then she’d blame me for it. “You made me do it because you’re so stupid!” she howled. Then she turned her eyes up to the ceiling and screamed at God: “What did I do to deserve an ungrateful, useless child? She ruined my life. Take her back!
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