May (Celeste’s mother)

All my life, I’d been looked down on because I was poor.

I worked myself to the bone, yet I could never afford to dress like the wealthy ladies I saw in magazines and on television. Their designer clothes, their perfect hair, their expensive jewelry—I wanted all of it. I deserved all of it.

Why wasn’t I born into wealth? Why was I cursed with poverty?

I blamed my mother for marrying a useless man like my father. A nobody, and a failure.

“May, it’s better to be poor with peace of mind than rich without it,” my mother used to say. She said it constantly, even...