I smiled — a small, quiet, controlled smile, the first real smile I’d managed in four months — and I said, “Okay.

I’ll move.” And the relief that swept the room, the relief that I had folded again, the way I always folded, was the last thing my family felt before the world I’d hidden from them came up the driveway.

Chapter 9 — The Box on the Concrete

I carried one box out to the garage myself.

I want to be clear that I did it on purpose.

I could have refused, could have made the scene Delphina was hoping for, but I wanted them to have this — the picture of me obeying, the last frame of the story they thought they were in — because I knew how short its shelf life was going to be.