On a crisp spring morning, I walked up the stairs to collect the keys to the apartment that had, for all thirty-four years of my life, lived in my mind as my parents’ house, and was now, simply, mine.

I met my mother on the landing as she carried down her final two suitcases.

We stood face to face in the narrow hallway.

She looked noticeably older, her eyes cold and sharp.

I thought she might scream at me, or, less likely, offer some bitter apology.

She did neither.

She brushed past me without a single word, her heels clicking heavily down the concrete steps until the lobby door slammed shut behind her.

I did not ask where she was going, and she did not tell me.