A person could enjoy your loyalty while arranging to take away the place where you felt safe.

The house had belonged to my mother.

She had handed me the keys two years before I met Kenneth, after a summer of painting walls together and arguing cheerfully about curtains.

Her name was still written inside the back cover of an old recipe book in the kitchen: A home should give you room to breathe.

I found the deed in the fireproof box beneath my desk.

I set it beside my marriage certificate and photographed both documents.