I went home in March.

I hadn’t been back in over a year.

I told Enid I’d be gone the weekend and she said “good” and pressed a jar of her preserves into my hands “for your mother, don’t tell her I made it, say you did,” which was Enid for I am proud of you and frightened for you and this is all I know how to send.

My mother opened the door and we stood there, the two of us, in the doorway of the little house I’d grown up in, both braced for the fight we always had, and I did the thing Enid had taught me, which was to take the coat off first.