Goodbye, Mother: The Daughter Who Walked Away

After my uncle and aunt died in a car crash, my mother brought my cousin home to live with us.

From that day on, I became a buy-one-get-one-free freebie.

She signed Renata up for an eight-thousand-dollar piano course, then signed me up too, because there was a half-price deal for two.

She took Renata to a five-hundred-a-head seafood buffet, and always dragged me along, because more people made it a better value.

My mother called it treating everyone equally.

Then we moved into the new house, and she bought Renata a pair of princess-style slippers she liked, and turned around and pushed a…