And when she reached over to smooth my hair behind my ear, I shifted my chair back two inches, out of her reach, and her hand dropped into her lap, and my father saw it from the kitchen doorway, and neither of us said a word, because the silence said it better than an argument could have.

Chapter 20 — You Live Here

By spring, Nana was off my emergency card, off my medical records, and off my father’s schedule entirely, and none of it had happened in a single shout.

It had happened the slow way, the real way, one signature and one lost premium at a time.

A few months later, the old deadbolt on our front door began sticking badly in the damp spring weather, and my father decided to replace it.

I sat on the top porch step while he worked, holding the little steel screws in my palm and trying not to drop them between the floorboards.