The drive from my parents’ house to Boston was a blur of blinding white snow and a pulsing migraine that throbbed in time with my heartbeat. Behind me lay the wreckage of my childhood illusions; ahead was a life I no longer recognized. It was the day after Christmas, a time usually reserved for warmth and gratitude, but I was fleeing. I was running away from a dinner table where, hours earlier, a single sentence had shattered fifteen years of my life. I had been carrying a tray of dessert into the dining room when I heard my mother’s voice,…