ceiling looked exactly like Ohio.
I stared at it and ran through every possibility.
Leave at dawn.
Skip church.
Let my mother explain my absence however she wanted.
She would.
I could already imagine the sermon about a prodigal too ashamed to face the light.
Or I could sit quietly in a back pew.
Smile.
Become an exhibit.
Purchase peace at the same old exchange rate.
Then, from Marin’s bed, half asleep:
“Mommy, do I have a grandma?”
She had met June.
Great-grandma made sense.
But children listen even when
