Chapter 61

“I was born into a poor family. My father was unemployed more often than not. We barely had enough to eat and whatever we did have, it was because of my mother. I was a sickly child. I rarely attended school and dropped out when I was fifteen. My father used to rape me, which was bad enough, but when he did it in front of my mother, and she just stood by and let him, that’s when whatever good was in me died.”

I was numb. I had suspected her life had been no bed of roses, but this! I’d never complain about my own mortal life again.

“I know other people come from similar backgrounds and do well for themselves. I don’t know. Maybe I’m stupid or something. But I think I did well enough. I prostituted myself. I had to. It was either that or starve.”

“Could you not have got a more respectable job?” asked the willowy spirit.

“I had very little education. What job could I have got?”

“It doesn’t take an education to clean offices or to make hamburgers.”