Then my youngest sister turned one, and our father sat us down at the kitchen table and announced that he had “met someone.”

He said it casually, like he was discussing a change in the weather instead of detonating our lives.

My mother looked at him for a long moment and asked, very quietly, “What does that mean?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“It means I want something different.”

“You have six daughters,” she said.

He gave a small shrug. “I’m not saying I won’t help.”

That was the first lie.A year later, my mother died.

Within a week, he was gone too.

After that, Mom became everything. She worked until her feet swelled. She stretched groceries like they were miracles. I was old enough to help with the little ones, so I did. We learned quickly how to survive. How to divide laundry into piles. How to make one pot of food last two meals. How to stop looking out the window when the driveway stayed empty.Then, when I was in college, Mom got diagnosed with cancer.

I went to class, then to work, then to the hospital. I learned how to smile for my sisters while my stomach felt like it was full of broken glass. I learned how to say, “She’s resting,” and “The doctors are helping,” and “It’s going to be okay,” even when I stopped believing any of it.A year later, she died too.

And just like that, at twenty-two years old, I became the legal guardian of my five younger sisters.