I sent photographs of his old sketchbooks and recipes for his favorite meals.

I texted him on holidays and on his birthday. Nothing came back.

Richard wouldn’t let me mention him at dinner.

Elliot’s name became a thing I was only allowed to think, never say.

“He’s our son,” I dared to say one evening.

“He was our son when he lived under this roof.” And I swallowed every response that rose in me, the way I had swallowed them for twenty-three years — until swallowing them had stopped feeling like a choice and started feeling like who I was.