AT 15, MY FATHER THREW ME INTO A STORM OVER A LIE — THREE HOURS LATER, THE POLICE CALLED HIM

I paused. After all these years, the Golden Child was finally the exile. Too late to repair anything, but there was a grim kind of justice in it.

I walked out into crisp October air. No rain. Leaves turning gold and crimson.

Colin was waiting for me back in Boston with takeout and a terrible movie queued on Netflix.

“How did it go?” he asked when I walked in, dropping my keys on the counter.

I leaned into him, catching the faint smell of rain on my own coat. “I think I’m finally done,” I said. “I think the story is over.”

Next spring, we’re getting married in Grandma Dorothy’s backyard. She’s eighty, still threatening people who cross her, and she’s already planning the menu. Meatloaf is nonnegotiable.

Somewhere, Karen is working a night shift, wondering where everything went wrong. My father is staring at a wall in a nursing home.

But me? I have a band poster framed in my office—the same one I wanted at fifteen. I overpaid for it on eBay, but that’s not the point.

The point is: I lived through the storm. And I found my way home.