I watched that land.

My mother had asked the question expecting it to be a lever, a reminder of my dependence on them, of the natural order that made parents the guardians of a childless widow.

And I had answered it with the truth: that I had already chosen my true family, the ones who had held me up between three caskets, the ones who had wept for my children as their own, and that my toxic parents had no place in my life, my death, my sickness, or my burial.

Donald had held my shoulder so I would not fall.