My Mother Texted That I Was Locked Out, but By Morning I Had Made a Few Calls

The text came late on a Tuesday night, when the city outside my window had finally gone quiet.

I was sitting at my kitchen table, the cheap flat-pack kind held together with Allen screws and optimism, laptop still open from a long day of paperwork I had been doing out of habit. A single overhead bulb hummed. The dishwasher clicked through its last cycle.continue reading …