“Helen, what did you do with our things?” Brittany shrieked into the phone, loud enough that I heard her both through the speaker and through the glass. I set down my chamomile tea and spoke calmly. “Everything you own is safe, packed, inventoried, and waiting at a storage unit three miles away. The address and key are taped to the door in front of you. You paid nothing to live here, so I paid to store your belongings. Consider it my final gift.”

There was a stunned silence, then the pounding resumed. Tyler’s voice rose behind his wife, no longer mumbling at the floor, now pleading through the door. “Mom, you can’t do this, where are we supposed to go?” I looked at the photograph of Robert holding our paid-off mortgage above his head, and I felt no guilt at all. I unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door six inches on the chain, and said the words I had rehearsed my whole silent year.