And for the first time since I had known them, there was nowhere for any of them to retreat.

This was the thing I understood, watching them stand there among their scattered designer luggage on the curb: for two years, this family’s entire power over me had been spatial.

It had lived in the house.

They controlled me by controlling the space — by making me a guest in my own home, by deciding which rooms were mine, by the ever-present unspoken threat that I could be made unwelcome, and finally, in the rain, by locking me out entirely.

Their power was a set of doors they could open or close on me.