“Susanna, come on, after everything—” “We were family when you knew about my leg and said nothing,” I said.

“You don’t get to reach for that word now because it’s finally costing you something.” I wasn’t cruel about it.

I didn’t raise my voice.

I just would not let him borrow, one more time, the closeness he’d spent twenty years spending.

Chapter 14 — Without Looking Back

Lonnie opened his mouth to argue, and then he looked at me, and then down at the blue folder, and something in him gave out.

He’d been waiting six years, maybe twenty, for the sound of this particular door closing, and here it was.