Chapter 8: Distance
At four months the wider family stopped testing the boundary with any regularity.
A holiday invitation arrived that included both households in the same sentence. I declined without explanation beyond a scheduling conflict that was only partly invented. Theo and I spent the day on a long train ride and a cheap museum membership that let us stay until closing. He declared it better than any party with cousins who ruined cakes. I did not correct the comparison. Some assessments from eight-year-olds are accurate enough to leave alone.
Drew’s name surfaced once in a group message that I muted without reading past the first line. The mute was permanent. Access to my attention had followed the same path as access to my accounts—available for years, then closed without a transition committee. People who preferred a more gradual story were free to construct one. My version required no further drafts.
