She stood in the aisle studying paint chips with a seriousness I usually reserved for mortgage documents.

“Mom?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for taking the wrong exit that day.”

I thought about the freeway sign I’d passed on the way to the emergency room.

It had felt like a small act of defiance, a single turn away from the direction Curtis expected.

“It was the right exit,” I said.

Sadie leaned against me, and for the first time in months, I believed we could build a home that didn’t require her to be brave every minute she lived in it.