She just kept the doors open and waited, for years, and when I walked through one at eleven o’clock at night with a suitcase and a burn on my cheek, she did not say I told you so, or finally, or any of the things she had every right to say.

She put on a pot of coffee, and opened the folder, and got to work.

Everyone should have one person like that.

I had spent seven years too ashamed to use mine.

Darcy opened the folder and read the first page, the deed, slow and thorough, the way she reads everything.

Then she looked up at me.

“He really told you to get out,” she said.

“Of this house.