What does August tell Lily about her mother that makes Lily say 'I hate her'?

• A. Her mother left her
• B. She is dead
• C. She never existed
• D. She was abusive

Answer: (A)

August reveals that Lily’s mother left her. That moment challenges Lily’s memory of her mother and exposes the pain of abandonment—when the person who was supposed to stay disappears instead. The idea of a mother who chose to leave makes Lily feel betrayed on a personal level, so her instinctive reaction is to lash out with anger and say she hates her mother. It highlights how a parent’s actual action, not an idealized image, shapes a child’s true feelings about that parent. The other possibilities would lead to different kinds of pain—grief if she were dead, confusion if she never existed, or anger from abuse—but abandonment is what sparks her strongest, most direct reaction in this moment.