“Are you really leaving today?” Arthur asked, gesturing at our luggage, as though our departure were the surprising and slightly rude part of the morning.

“To Boston,” I said.

“My sister found us a place.”

He let out a small, dry smirk that I can still see when I close my eyes.

“When you figure out that starting over from scratch with four girls isn’t as easy as you seem to think,” he said, “give me a call.” I did not answer him.

I gathered my daughters, and I turned my back on the man I had given sixteen years to, and I did not look back, and it would be a long time before I understood that walking down those steps was not the end of anything.