the place you grew up could feel at once so safe and so much like a trap. I had never wanted to leave it, but here I was, my bags packed and my good-byes all ready and waiting in the back of my throat.
I’d caught her in the living room at three in the morning, reading books about ornithological case studies in the near dark. Whenever I tried to turn on a light for her, she’d said there was no need: she knew the books by heart.