That was the night the last of my hesitation went out of me, though I did not announce it, even to Marcus.

I had spent three years treating two parts of my life as though they lived in separate houses, the money in one and my daughter in the other, and refusing to let them meet because I knew, without letting myself know, what they would say to each other when they did.

They had met now.

They had met on the kitchen counter, five hundred and fifty beside thirty-nine, the request-for-money message beside the chose-to-be-elsewhere message, and there was no putting them back in separate houses.

There was only the question of what I was going to do with a truth I could no longer un-add.