Lying awake that night, I understood at last that the safe empty house I had built was not an achievement to be defended but a prison to be escaped, and that a fourteen-month-old in Colfax was, improbably, the key.

Chapter 4 — Colfax at First Light

I drove to Colfax at first light the next morning, without calling ahead, without an appointment, without any real plan beyond the need to see her with my own eyes.

I have thought since about why I did not call first, and I believe it was because some part of me was afraid that if I gave anyone advance warning, they would find a reason to manage me, to slow me down, to hand me a brochure and a waiting list.

I did not want to be managed.