That last part was a story she'd told so many times, she believed it.
Three years ago, I hadn't had nowhere to go. I'd had a lease in a nice apartment across town and a savings account I was proud of. I'd moved back home because my father had surgery on his knee and my mother said she couldn't manage him alone. I'd meant to stay three months. Then the furnace died, and then the taxes came due, and then there was always one more thing, and three months became three years so gradually I never noticed the moment it happened.
I could have said all of that. I'd rehearsed it.
Instead, I said the only thing that mattered.
"I know you raised me, Mom. I'm grateful. I'll always be grateful. But being grateful doesn't mean I have to keep paying for the privilege of being called names at dinner."
I stepped past her toward the door. Derek moved aside to let me through. As I passed him, he said, very quietly, "Nay, I'm sorry."
I didn't answer. Not because I didn't believe him, but because I didn't know yet whether I could.
Maddie ran after me onto the porch.
"Aunt Naomi, wait!"
I turned. She held out her hand. In her palm was a friendship bracelet, the kind made from embroidery thread, blue and green, a little lopsided.
"I made two in the car," she said. "One for Theo but he won't wear it. You can have it."
I knelt and let her tie it around my wrist. It took her three tries. When she finished, she looked up at me.
"Will I see you again?"
"Yes," I said, and I meant it more than I'd meant anything all week. "I promise."
My father caught up with me at the car.
He walked slowly because of his knee, and I waited for him, leaning against the driver's door while the wind pushed a few early leaves across the sidewalk.
