“...it had occurred to me that this whole having-children situation was essentially a process of unspooling. Once [my child] had been so close to me that her feet had gotten stuck in my ribs. We lived literally tethered. And then she was born and screamed if she wasn't being nursed or held. But with each day, she unspooled a little farther away--rolling over, eating food, sitting, walking, screaming, 'Go away, Mommy!'--the crimson thread connecting us unraveling more and more as she wandered out into the woods of the world.”