At 6:00 A.M., My Mother Learned Whose House She Lived In

fast?”

“Depends how hard you want to hit.”

That made me flinch, because I didn’t want to hit anybody. I wanted my mother to wake up one morning and decide to stop being cruel to children.

I wanted a thing that wasn’t for sale.

“So if I do nothing?”

“You keep paying. They keep assuming. And when your father dies, or your mother does, Jason will probably continue reading …