I checked, the way you check a door you have learned at last to lock.

The space behind me is empty, and it is mine, and I walked to my car through the clean afternoon listening to the steady, strong, unhurried sound of my own footsteps — and I knew, with a certainty that no one will ever take from me again, that no one is ever going to tell me where I am allowed to go.

The foundation had carried the weight for a very long time, buried and silent, holding up a life that gave it nothing back.

It does not have to do that anymore.

It gets to stand in the sun now, and go where it likes, and be, in full daylight and answerable to no one, wholly and entirely itself.