I chose wrong.
I led with the boundary.
She answered on the second ring.
“Mom, I have to stop sending money.”
That was all I got out.
The line erupted.
Ungrateful.
After everything they had done.
The mortgage.
My father’s heart.
Who did I think had paid for my ambition?
Then the call ended.
I dialed again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
I sat on the bathroom floor with everything I had never been allowed to say—Caleb, the baby—lodged inside me like swallowed glass.
That week, my blood pressure earned me a
