For years, my mother wore long sleeves even in the middle of summer. One day I finally asked, “Did Dad do something to you?” She went pale, closed the door, and said something that frightened me even more…

Both of her arms were wrapped in bandages.

Beside her was my father, also young, exhausted, asleep in a chair.

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I looked at them, confused.

My mother slowly rolled up her sleeves.

For the first time in my life, I saw her arms.

They were covered in old, uneven scars.

Not fresh.

Not the kind I had spent months imagining.

They were decades old.

“I was twenty-one,” my mother said. “There was a fire in our house.”

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I froze.

“Your father and I were engaged at the time. When he found out, he ran inside looking for me.”

I looked at my father.

He lowered his head.

My mother continued.

“I spent a long time in the hospital. The hardest part for me wasn’t the pain. It was how I looked afterward. I didn’t want anyone to see my arms. Not even him.”