I had been with Mom for a month before I went to her crying, begging her to bring Gabriel and Shawna to live with us. She thought I missed them at first, until I managed to tell her what had happened in that house. I remember the long interval before her face went slack with understanding. She didn’t bring them to live with us, but she did raise hell with the foster care system and made sure they were removed from Janet and Everett’s home. It wasn’t until years later that it occurred to me that there was no real guarantee that Shawna and Gabriel had ultimately wound up in a better place.

“It still haunts me to think,” Mom says, her voice thin as a butterfly’s wing, “what was going through your mind while you were standing there that day.”

Even now I’m not sure. I know I craved escape—from that room and that house and maybe even from the dark cave my head had become. I’d wanted to fly, to feel weightless in the infinite sky, even if only for an instant.

Chapter 35

Adam pauses to admire a passing French Bulldog as we walk down a transformed street in my neighborhood. Since I moved in, much has happened here. The thrift shop is now a juice bar with wheatgrass growing in pots on a marble countertop. Two women took over the corner bodega and turned it into a yoga studio, where women in pink camo leggings salute the sun. The Jamaican restaurant has given way to a coffee shop outfitted with a fireplace, free Wi-Fi, and a water bowl for thirsty dogs.

Adam knows I miss the feel of the old neighborhood. The thrift shop felt like an old-world bazaar, its shelves mixed with necessities and handcrafts. Every time I entered the bodega, the owner called out, Doctora! and clutched his chest in mock pain. I went into his shop more often than I needed to, but not enough to make his lease affordable.

Adam and I have settled into this new world order, though, and decided that the coffee shop is our favorite addition to the block, especially when the two armchairs by the front window are up for grabs.

I’ve been dating Adam for almost a year, but we live on opposite ends of the city and work the kind of hours that don’t leave much time for play, so a year is not really a year. Adam is in finance, having followed in his father’s footsteps. I find his admiration for his dad endearing. Their conversations remind me of my father sharing his work with me as if I were a young apprentice.

I met Adam at an airport bookstore in Chicago. I was standing with a beach read in one hand and an exposé of Big Pharma in the other when he approached me.