Chapter 1: The House That Still Had Room for Me

Carrie’s house had been my spare version of home since I was ten. Her mother Sue kept snacks that she knew I liked, even as my tastes had evolved with my age. Her father, Kevin, made jokes that were actually jokes and absurd comments wrapped in poorly devised punchlines. Carrie was a dear friend with the kind of loyalty that always came with snarky commentary, which I preferred to the silent kind, because with Carrie you always knew where the knife was. I had known all of them for eight years. I had eaten at their table, slept on their couch, and borrowed their towels more times than I could count, and I never once thought of any of the people in that house as anything except Carrie’s and, by extension, mine.

I did not make it past the entryway before I started crying again. Not the pretty kind. The ugly, unscheduled kind that arrives without asking if you have an audience. Sue was there in the kitchen, hair up, looking like the sort of woman in her forties who had decided kindness was a necessary habit for a mother. She took one look at my face and didn’t ask a single question; she walked toward me immediately, with the foresight all the best mothers seem to have.

“Oh, honey,” she said, and then her arms were around me, and I got her shirt wet, and she did not mention it.