She had renamed a house she did not own to display it.

And in the end that approval turned out to be exactly as substantial as I could have told her it was: a thing that evaporated the instant she stopped being useful to it, that not one of its holders would carry across the parking lot for her, let alone into her exile.

She had traded everything real — honesty, security, freedom, in the end even the daughter whose home she claimed to be protecting — for the good opinion of people who forgot her before her car was out of the drive.

It is the oldest bad bargain in the world, and she made it with her eyes open, and it ruined her.