’m absolutely certain,” I said, keeping my voice soft in the hope that my volume would convey some illusion of patience. “Please

The worst part of it is that I was right. I’ve always known that my need to control things to a minute level of detail is unhelpful, bordering on unhealthy. I try to keep it in check as much as I can. But then if I don’t stay vigilant, my husband uses our money to grow a new wife, and my lab assistant uses my grant to support his side hustle, and I wonder why I bother trying.

didn’t need her to be perfectly obedient. I could handle her as she was. But I liked her better when she did as she was told. That didn’t mean that I was the same

expression to any purpose. She wasn’t trying to make anyone else feel happy, or important, or safe, or guilty. She’d been created and molded to think constantly of what her face and voice and body might incite in others. She’d been made to manage the emotions of people around her. She’d been made to be careful. But in that moment, her contentment belonged to her, and to her alone. She had made something, and she owned it entirely, and no one could take it from her.