And I meant it as the plainest possible statement of fact, because that was exactly what it was.

I picked up the two suitcases I’d never fully unpacked — I’d understand, later, that some part of me had been packed to leave for a long time — and I scooped Emrys onto my hip and took my mother by the arm, and I walked the three of us out the front door and across the quiet street.

Directly opposite our house stood the grandest place in the whole gated community: a limestone estate behind a low wall, the house Dashiell and Corinna had pointed at for years and talked about the way people talk about things they believe are permanently beyond them.

There is a strange calm that comes over you at the exact moment you finally do the thing you’ve been afraid to do for years.

I had expected, whenever I imagined this moment — and I had imagined it more than I’d admitted to myself — that it would feel violent, that I’d be shaking, that I’d have to force myself.

It wasn’t like that at all.