It is the one gift, if you can call it that, buried inside the whole terrible affair: it taught me that love at a distance requires more than money and phone calls, that it requires a kind of vigilance, a willingness to look past the comfortable surface a person you love may build precisely to keep you comfortable.

I will not be fooled by a brave face again.

I learned that lesson at my mother’s expense, and I do not intend to waste it.

Chapter 3 — On Her Knees

I walked around the side of the house, past the garden hose coiled on its hook and the tall windows glowing gold with the last of the light, toward the backyard.

And then I saw her.