We Thought Our Mother Abandoned Us—Until I Heard My Adoptive Mom Say, “Everything Went According to Plan”

a warning. Like a debt we could never repay.

“Don’t forget,” she would say whenever one of us displeased her, “you’d still be rotting away in an orphanage if it weren’t for us.”

Or, “You should be grateful we saved you from such a miserable life.”

When I was little, I didn’t fully understand what those words meant. I only knew they made something inside continue reading …