Stars on the Ceiling

"You did?"

"You're my kid," she said. "I know you."

"But I said—"

"I know what you said," she said. "And I know you were confused and angry and I know the things grown-ups said around you that you didn't have a way to understand yet. None of that was your job to manage. That was my job and Dad's job and the grown-ups' job, and we didn't do it well enough to keep it from you so you assumed that