(Catherine POV)
The practical part of my mind immediately conjured images of everything I'd be leaving behind permanently—Mother's gentle guidance, Father's slowly healing guilt, Jamie's bright enthusiasm for life that hadn't yet been dimmed by adult disappointments. The human world with its comprehensible limitations and predictable consequences, where women might be constrained by society's expectations but at least understood what those expectations were.
But even as I thought of them, even as I felt the familiar tug of family obligation that had governed most of my adult decisions, I knew with crystalline clarity where my heart had already made its choice. The letter from home still sat on my writing desk like reminder of world I'd been born into, but it felt like artifact from someo
