" Later, Mother patted my back as I threw up into the toilet. I remember the smell of Jergen’s lotion from her hands, and how the tenderness of her gesture repelled me even as part of me hungered for it. I passed out sending prayers up at machine-gun speed, like a soldier in a foxhole to a god not believed in, Don’t let me be her, don’t let me be her. For however she’d pulled herself together for this trip, she could blow at any second. "

― Mary Karr , Lit