The day I could tolerate it — the day I could let someone I loved be upset with me, and be wrong, and stay upset, without rushing in to make it better at my own expense — was the day I became, for the first time, a person they could not move.

Immovability, it turns out, is not a wall you build.

It is simply what remains when you stop volunteering to be moved.

Chapter 18 — The Key My Mother Returned

My parents eventually accepted that I would not back down, and found a rental across town.

My father stayed bitter and would not speak to me directly, right up to the day they finished packing the car.

My mother, though, began slowly to change as the reality of what she stood to lose settled into her.