I had believed her.
Not because my mother had earned my trust.
Because I had been exhausted.
My grandmother’s death happened during the worst year of my relationship with my family, and by then I had stopped fighting every battle.
Growing up, fighting had been pointless anyway.
In our house, facts were flexible things.
There was my version.
There was reality.
And then there was whatever my younger sister Vanessa needed my parents to believe.
Vanessa was born when I was four.
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