Real care would have asked what Gemma wanted.

Real care would have asked me, her sister, whether I was willing to be part of her life, and I would have said yes, joyfully, without a second’s hesitation.

Real care does not begin with the assumption that a person is a burden to be offloaded.

My parents’ plan was not care that went too far.

It was abandonment that had learned to speak the language of care, and Gabriel, at seventeen years old, had seen through the language to the thing underneath, and had decided to stop it with the only tool available to him.

Chapter 21 — I Loved Her Too Much to Let Them