My father stood by the driver-side door of my Honda, his fingers resting on the cold chrome of the handle.

The air in the St.

Anne hospital parking garage tasted of damp concrete and car exhaust.

It was six o’clock on a Thursday, the shift change bringing a steady hum of engines from the lower levels.

Behind my father, near a thick concrete support pillar, my mother stood with her coat collar turned up against the autumn draft.

I did not unlock the car.

“You need to go home, Arthur,” I said.

My voice was flat, the same tone I used when a patient disputed their insurance copay at the intake desk.

Arthur adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, sliding them up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.

“We tried calling your cell phone three times, Mara,” he said, his voice carrying that slow, heavy weight I had spent twelve years trying to forget.

“I changed my number six months ago,” I said.

In my purse, my fingers touched the small zippered compartment where I kept forty-two dollars in cash, the exact sum I had taken from my childhood junk drawer the night I left their house.

I had carried those same bills across three states before settling in Columbus, a physical reminder of the day I stopped being Mara Whitmore.

My mother shifted her weight, her boots scraping against the grit on the garage floor.

She twisted her gold wedding band around her ring finger, over and over, until the skin underneath looked red.

“Caleb is in trouble, Mara,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying across the drafty space.

“Caleb is always in trouble,” I said.

Arthur adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses again, his fingers lingering on the metal frame.