My parents lived forty minutes away.
My sister lived twenty-five minutes away.
Those numbers stayed in my head because numbers were my job.
I knew how long payroll files took to process.
I knew how many minutes it took to reconcile a bad spreadsheet.
I knew exactly how little time it would have taken for one of them to stand in that doorway and act like I mattered.
For years, I had been the dependable daughter.
I paid my parents’ phone bills when my father forgot again.
I covered property taxes when my mother cried about losing the house.
I rescued overdrafts.
I drove across town at midnight whenever someone used the word emergency.
My mother had my spare key.
My father had my old bank routing information from the year I helped him refinance.
My sister knew exactly which sentence would make me feel selfish enough to send money before asking what happened.
