Part 2Late-Life Luggage

Even as a child, two things became clear to me. I was the least favored person in my family, and my mother was the one who toiled the most.

When we visited my grandparents, I was never allowed to eat at the main table. After my mother had painstakingly cooked and served all the food, Grandpa would always feign politeness, saying, "Ellie, there's not enough room. You take little Amelia to the kitchen to eat."

I was named Amelia when I was born. My mother, who hadn't had much schooling, later thought the name was too common. She secretly took me to the county office to change it. When the clerk asked her what she wanted to change it to, all she could think of was "Mia." She said I deserved to be cherished and loved by everyone. So, I became Mia Hayes.

Eating in the kitchen was actually a delight, because my mother would always secretly save me a few pieces of meat. While the big family feasted raucously outside, my mother and I would share our quiet, warm meal in the kitchen.

My grades were always excellent in school. But when I was in ninth grade, my father wouldn't let me continue. He said he had connections to get me a factory job, where I could earn at least fifteen hundred a month. I could send a thousand home each month, and with the family's savings, they could buy my brother a house in the city, helping him get married.

My mother refused. Father beat her for it, but she wouldn't budge. With a bruised and swollen face, she went to my homeroom teacher, begging for a few more days, promising she would find a way to pay my tuition. She went to a construction site, hauling bricks for pennies a piece, working day and night until her fingers were raw and bleeding. Finally, she scraped together enough for my tuition. The day she paid for my schooling, she was brutally beaten by my father again.