“Mom is not love,” she informed me, her tone abruptly brittle.

“Mom is not love.” We’d danced around this before, without ever making progress. Now, having this rare moment in time, I decided to press the matter. “Why not? Why can’t Mom be love?”

Shana stubbornly pressed her lips together, refusing to answer.

“Harry loved her, married her. In turn, she loved him, took care of his house, raised children with him.”

“He did not love her!”

“He loved you?”

“Yes. Blood is love. He loved me. Not her.”

I leaned forward and stated quietly, “He hurt her. Every day, according to the detectives’ reports. If pain is love, then our father loved our mother very much.”

Shana growled back at me: “Don’t be stupid! Anyone can beat someone. That’s not love. Blood is love. You know this! Cutting requires thoughtfulness, even tenderness. To delicately slice through layer after layer of skin. To intentionally avoid the iliac or the femoral or the popliteal. To slice only the great saphenous vein and nothing else . . .” She gestured to her bandaged legs. “Blood is love. It involves great care. You know this, Adeline. You know this!”

I stared my sister in the eye. “It wasn’t your fault, Shana. What our father did, what happened in that house, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re a baby! A weak, useless baby. Mom used to tell him that just so he would leave you alone. But I showed you my love. I cut your wrist just so you wouldn’t feel alone, and Mom beat the shit out of me for it.”

“She hit you? Or Dad hit you?”

“She hit me. Mom is not love. And you’re still weak and useless!”

I switched gears, leaning back. “Shana, who stitched you up? If blood is love, and he cut you each night, who repaired you in the morning?”

My sister looked away.

“Someone fixed you. Every morning, someone had to make you better again. And they couldn’t take you to a hospital. That would’ve garnered too much attention. So every morning, someone had to clean your cuts, bandage the wounds, do their best to make you feel better. Who, Shana, did that for you?”

Shana, shoulders twitching, jaw working, kept her gaze fixed on the far wall.

“Mom did it, didn’t she? She stitched you up. Every night he destroyed and every morning she rebuilt. And you’ve never forgiven her for it. That’s why Mom cannot equal love. Daddy hurt you. But she failed you. And that was worse, wasn’t it? What she did, that hurt worse.”

Shana, suddenly staring at me, her brown eyes gleaming uncannily: “You are her. I’m Dad, but you’re Mom.”

“Do you think I am trying to rebuild you? My visits feel like the morning; then I go away and abandon you once more to the night?”