“Most mothers worry when their daughters reach adolescence but I was the opposite. I relaxed, I sighed with relief. Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.”

“Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life sized.”

“No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.”

“Apart from all this, I do of course have a real life. I sometimes have trouble believing in it, because it doesn't seem like the kind of life I could ever get away with, or deserve. This goes along with another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

“This goes along with another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

“I didn't know I was about to be left with her idea of me; with her idea of my goodness pinned onto me like a badge and no chance to throw it back at her (as would have been the normal course of affairs with a mother and a daughter—if she'd lived, as I'd grown older).”