It was a picture, arriving clearly on the third day, of the life that call would build: a man brought back by obligation, resentment curdling under the surface of the household, a daughter growing up fluent in the exact grammar I had spent seven years trapped inside.

I had a choice, on that floor, between an easier life and a cleaner one.

I chose the cleaner one, and I have never for a single instant wished otherwise.

“You should have,” he whispered.

“Jessica, you should have called me.”

Chapter 16 — The Choice I Made

“No,” I said.

“And I want you to understand why, because it’s the most important decision I ever made, and I have never once regretted it.”