When I Got Home From My Night Shift at 6:14 A.M., I Found My Husband in the Guest Room With My Sister While My Five-Year-Old Slept on the Cold Kitchen Floor — I Picked Up My Boy and Left Without Waking Either of Them, and by Sunrise I Understood the Guest Room Was the Smallest and Least Ugly Part of the Truth

My son will grow up remembering only that his mother came for him.

And the morning Gideon was most certain he was pulling the wool over my eyes was the morning he lost absolutely everything.

I lifted Roger up, and kissed his forehead, and looked out over the bright ordinary yard that was ours now, and ours alone.

We were safe.

We were whole.

And we were, at last, home.

THE END.