I Came Home Unannounced After Four Years Abroad and Found My Wife Starved and Shaved in the Backyard. My Mother Said She’d Brought It on Herself. I Didn’t Yell

“Everything’s fine here.

Just come home safe.” I lived on those calls.

They were the thing I worked toward, the face at the end of the tunnel.

And then, a few months back, the calls changed.

She stopped turning on her camera.

It was the internet, she said, the connection was bad.

It was her old phone.

She was tired, it was late, she’d rather just hear my voice.