I answered him properly, because he was the only one who asked a question rather than delivering a verdict. I told him I had done it because for thirty two years everything I built was treated as inventory, and that I did not blame him for the divorce, only for assuming the paver would still be there.

He wrote back eight months later. It was a long message and most of it was about our father. We have coffee now, four or five times a year. He rents, he is fine, and he has never once asked me for anything since.

My parents and I have not spoken in three years. My mother sends cards. I read them.

The flat downtown has one bedroom and a window that gets the morning. I chose it for no reason except that I liked it, which was a new experience.

I spent my whole life being the reasonable one, which in that house simply meant the one who could be moved. The day I stopped being movable, I discovered I had never actually needed their permission to take up space in my own life.