“Then explain this to me.”

And my aunt, who has my exact face and who I had spent two years using as a promise about my own future, gave me the most honest answer anybody in my family has ever given me, and it took her about nine seconds and it rearranged everything.

“I didn’t leave to save Sandra,” Renee said.

“I want you to hear the whole sentence.

I left to save *me.* I was twenty-five and I could not survive another year in that house, so I packed a bag and I got in the Buick and I drove to New Mexico, and my sister was twenty-two years old and I left her standing in the driveway.

“I’ve let you call me the escape for two years.