“It’s completely over.”

“Were you super tired again, like always?”

The question went into me like a small clean blade, because of what it revealed — that my six-year-old had come to understand every family event as the thing that made his mother disappear into exhaustion.

“No, my love,” I said.

“Not this time.”

Two days later I secured a modest two-bedroom apartment in Pasadena — a tiny kitchen, an old building, and not one single person with the standing to pin a list to my refrigerator or drop by unannounced to inspect my housekeeping.

Before I moved my things, my mother tried to press an envelope into my hands.