Chapter 3 — Something Went Still

Something inside me went completely still.

It was not rage, exactly, though there was rage in it somewhere far down.

It was quieter than rage, and colder, and much more final.

It was the specific stillness of a person who has just reached the absolute end of a very long road, and who understands, all at once and with total clarity, that she is never going to walk back down it.

Thirty-two years of being my family’s punchline ended in that fountain.