Because she didn’t believe it.
She stopped calling it home the night she found the blueprints. afton mommy
Not out of grief.
Her name was Eleanor Afton, though the town only remembered her as “that poor woman” or, later, “the Afton mother.” The one who left before the worst of it. The one who tried to take the children but only managed to keep Michael—and only because he was old enough to refuse his father’s house. Because she didn’t believe it