I had spent two years hoping he would choose me over the family’s comfort.

In that living room I watched him, given the clearest possible chance, choose the comfort one last time.

And it did not hurt the way I’d feared it would.

It was just clarifying.

It just, at last, set me free.

“Your family was finished eight years ago, David,” I said.

“You just chose to keep living in the house while it burned, and to call the smoke my imagination.

There’s nothing left here to protect.