Anna had been contemplating leaving New York for twelve years—that is to say, as long as she had lived there. But the longing had only intensified in the years since Sam’s birth. She felt plagued by bourgeois fantasies of a cheaper, cleaner, healthier, happier life for them in an unnamed, distant city. She imagined a backyard for Sam, and a yellow dog of indeterminate lineage from the shelter, and walk-in closets, and laundry done sans quarters and in the privacy of her own home, and no one living above them or below them. She imagined palm trees and warm weather and the scent of plumeria, and
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