I paid for my parents to fly out and see me for the first time in four years. They stayed at my sister’s house 30 minutes away. I set the table every night for a week. They never came. On their last day, Mom texted: “Maybe next time, sweetie!” I was the bank. Not the daughter. So I shut it down.

a cacophony of domestic life: shrieking children, clinking porcelain, Hannah’s sharp laughter.

“Hey, Soph,” he said, his voice as casual as if we spoke every day. “Everything okay?”

“I was checking on dinner,” I said, my voice tight. “I’ve got the table set again.”

There was a pause, the kind of silence that precedes a practiced excuse. “Tonight might continue reading …