The permission thing stayed with her the longest, and it taught me the most about what had been done to her.

For months she called me to ask about small decisions — whether she could cut her hair, whether it was all right to buy a particular coat, whether she should take a certain job — and every time, under the surface question, I could hear the real one, which was am I allowed. The Pembrooks had spent years training her to seek permission for everything, because a person who cannot make her own decisions cannot leave; they had taken not just her money and her father but her very sense that her choices were hers to make.

And so freedom, for Yvaine, did not arrive all at once when the handcuffs went on the Pembrooks.

It arrived slowly, one small unpermitted decision at a time — a haircut she didn’t ask about, a coat she simply bought, a job she took without calling anyone first.

I made a point, always, of throwing the question back to her. You can shave your head if you want to, Yvaine.

It’s your life. And every time, there would be a pause on the line, and then she would say, a little wonderingly, that she was still getting used to not having to ask.