My Parents Disappeared From My Life for Years Until One Night They Sat at My Table Without Knowing

to do, the kind of tired that feels less like depletion and more like proof.

The Mitchells did not call.

Not when the star was awarded. Not when Ember opened. Not when a food magazine ran a profile with my photograph on the cover and the headline that said something about rising from nowhere. My mother did not call to say she had seen it. My father did continue reading …