taught me that appearances could be misleading.

My mother rarely shouted. She didn’t need to.

Her favorite weapon was a sentence that sounded harmless to everyone except the person it was meant to hurt.

When I was ten, she examined my school photograph and said, “Well, that isn’t your best look.”

Then she asked why I couldn’t smile normally.

When I was sixteen, she told me my homecoming dress made my arms look larger than they were.

She delivered the comment while adjusting my necklace, as if she were helping