“Or sometimes my mother would come in with me and sit there, watch me change into and out of things. It looks fine, she’d say. She said that every time except once, when she turned away, attempting to mask her disgust at the sight of the fresh mess of red stretch marks across my stomach. Even though she had the same marks on her own stomach, she couldn’t bear seeing them on me. Hadn’t she tried, in her way, to spare me from inheriting her fate? I can still see them now in the mirror, faded.”
