And at the sound of that — at the pure, unhesitating protectiveness of it — the tears I had held back through the whole long ordeal finally came.

My father took the phone from her.

“You pick up Chloe,” he said, “and you come home.

Right now.

And nobody in this house is ever going to ask you how long you’re planning to stay.”

I pulled the big suitcase down from the closet shelf and laid it open on the bed, and before I could even begin, Chloe came over and started carefully setting her small folded shirts inside, one at a time, smoothing each one flat with her little hands, packing to leave the only home she had ever known without a single complaint, because to her it had never really been a home at all.

I watched her do it, and I had to turn away for a moment so she would not see my face.