My father said I had to be patient with my mother; she was sick. “Why can’t she take medicine?” I asked, but my father said that her ailment was in her soul and only God could cure it. I prayed for her to get better. I was good. I kept the house spotless. I cooked my own meals and left my mother’s on a tray outside her door. She seldom ate my food, afraid I would poison her. “Why can’t you leave us alone?” she’d ask me, and I’d try harder. I wore old-fashioned dresses that made me look like a storybook good girl. Three starchy numbers with white scalloped necks that my father found at the
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