We’re family.” I looked at him from the hospital bed, at the man who had held my chin and told me to learn my lesson, and I felt, to my own surprise, no hatred.

Hatred would have been a kind of tie, and I was done being tied to him.

I felt only a great, clean distance.

“You aren’t my family, Garrett,” I said quietly.

“You’re just people I’m going to testify against.” And I watched them take all three of them out through the door, and then I lay back against my pillow, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I breathed all the way in and all the way out.

Chapter 14 — The Long Road