It was the following fall when I made the decision. I'd been commuting for a year by then, a few days in the city and a few in the town I had sworn I would never come back to. My editor had offered me a bigger role—more responsibility, more money, more of everything I thought I wanted. I turned it down.
The thing was, I had spent four years proving I could live without them. I wanted to spend the next few years finding out if I could live with them. Not the family I'd grown up in—that family was gone. But a new one. One that was built on honesty, and on choice, and on showing up.
I told my mother over coffee one morning.
"I'm moving back," I said. "Not into the house. Into town. I'm renting a place near the library."
She set down her mug. For a moment she didn't say anything.
"You don
