We worked in companionable silence, sanding the old step until the splinters were gone.

When I caught him watching me, I said, “You don’t have to be careful with every word forever.”

“Maybe not forever,” he replied.

“But for now I’d rather be careful than careless.”

I took the sanding block from his hand.

For the first time, the cabin felt less like a refuge from my family and more like a place in which I could choose who I wanted to become.

PART 13