She had been frightened, and she had been paying the fear, in installments, at every dinner, for years.

The money had only ever been the visible part of it, the part with a number attached that you could point to.

The thing underneath the money was fear, and fear is the one currency a family like that will take in unlimited quantities and never once acknowledge receiving.

Chapter 20 — Backyards and Pizza Parlors

Six months on, the shape of our life had changed, slowly and then all at once, the way shapes do once a single load-bearing habit is finally pulled out of them.

Derek kept going to counseling, and so did I, and he set boundaries with his family that were firm and unshowy and real, boundaries he held even when they cost him, which they did.