For three years I had answered before anyone needed to ask twice.

That morning I let the calls ring, and the ringing was not comfortable, and I let it be uncomfortable, because the alternative was to spend another day the way I had spent a thousand days, arranging my own life around the convenience of theirs.

In the afternoon I found a note from my mother folded under the front door, my name across the envelope in her familiar rounded hand.

The first page did not mention the birthday.