That smile was worth more than the car and the trust and the whole afternoon’s reckoning combined.

It was the thing I had actually been fighting for, under all the rest of it — not my mother’s downfall, which I would have skipped if I could have, but this: my daughter’s face, finally free of the weight of that house, turned toward home.

She pressed the ignition and the V8 came alive, a deep triumphant sound that drowned out the tow truck’s diesel grind and the last of Presley’s crying.

I climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut, and we drove away, leaving the strobes and the repo man and the smoking wreck of my family shrinking in the mirror.

As we turned the corner, out of sight of the estate at last, I leaned my head back and let a quiet chuckle escape.

“What’s funny?” Quinn asked, shifting smoothly into second.