“I was afraid that I could have changed everything, and hadn’t. I was afraid that everything could yet change, or not, and I was the one who had to decide. I was afraid of choices I had let go, of decisions I might never make. I was afraid I had turned down every opportunity to be someone other than who I was now. I was afraid I would never get back to someplace real, someplace on the map that would feel like a place to start. I was afraid of the future. I didn’t think I’d ever thought about the future before, beyond fantasies. Fantasies didn’t require anything from me, but real life, the real future, did. I held the lifejackets against the slight swell of my belly. I had never had a future before.”