“My father was a quiet man. He never spoke much. He was always in some corner of the house, whittling away at any scrap of wood he could find. Mama was the same. Quiet. Obedient. We went to… to church a lot. And school. And… and…”
I’m surprised to hear her voice catch and notice a single tear splash down to muddle the gold leaf on top of her dessert. She raises her eyes to look at me finally. More tears cling to her eyelashes stubbornly.
“I haven’t thought about them in so long,” she whispers. “I’ve forced myself to forget so much.”
“Forget what?”
She shrugs. “The way they lived their lives. The way they taught me to live mine.”
“They wanted you to get married and be a good, obedient wife?”
Elyssa nods.
“And what did you want?”
She hesitates. “I wanted what they wanted. I couldn’t
