Here is the shape.

What my mother did. Opened a letter addressed to me.

Wrote a reply on it in my name.

Told a mail carrier I did not live at an address where my name was on two utility accounts.

Turned my pregnant wife away from her door and never mentioned it.

Told me, over sixteen months of Sunday phone calls, a series of small fictions designed to keep me exactly where I was.

What I did. Received an explanation within forty minutes and refused to read it.