I had given up on being unburdened.

I was driving to Ohio because my ten-year-old had asked to meet her grandparents, and for no larger reason than that.

It is strange, and it is one of the things I have turned over most in the years since, how the moments that change everything so rarely announce themselves.

I thought I was taking my daughter on a small, hard, necessary trip.

I did not know I was driving the evidence home.