laughing.
Her emotional crisis had apparently made a miraculous recovery.
I carried my bags out the back door.
Nobody noticed.
By sunrise, I was almost four hundred miles away.
At 8:16 a.m., Mom texted me.
Stop sulking. We need you to buy groceries.
I read it twice.
Then turned my phone facedown.
For the first time in years, I bought breakfast without calculating whether a cup of coffee would leave enough money for somebody else’s electric bill.
The freedom felt strange.
Almost frightening.
I kept driving until afternoon
