Then I remembered another joke my mother used to make, when she did anything she thought was wrong, like telling a white lie over the phone, or unbuckling her seat belt while driving: “Don’t put this in your novel.” That, too, had always made me laugh, though there was an underlying assumption that was somehow troubling: that the disorder you experienced in your childhood was somehow to your credit, or capitalizable upon in later life—even though, or precisely because, it was a discredit to your mother. So your credit and your mother’s credit were somehow at odds.
