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.

“But you’re making this sound like we abandoned you. We’re thirty minutes away!”

“Thirty minutes you refused to travel,” I replied.

The line went silent for a moment, and then I heard Hannah in the background whisper, “Just hang up, Mom, she’s being dramatic again.” My mother didn’t defend me; she just said, “Talk later,” and disconnected.

Act IV: The continue reading …