I wasn’t bothered the first time I saw my mother go through the suitcase of a maid that was leaving. “Suitcase” is perhaps an overstatement for the bunch of rags the woman carried in her hand. At eight years old, I peeked at the exchange from behind a couch. The maid slowly took out her belongings one by one: shirts, pajamas, underwear. My mom looked at me, saying, “She could be taking something.” Three women in a small room and an act of humiliation that still weighs on me: my own mother against the weakest person imaginable, a pregnant maid, who was leaving for good.