“I told her what I believed was the most likely outcome.”

“And what did you tell me when I came home?”

Silence again.

I remembered that week with terrible clarity.

Landing.

Calling her fourteen times and getting a disconnected line.

Driving to her building and finding the apartment stripped.

Sitting in my mother’s study that night while she gently explained that Kelsey had come by to say goodbye — that she was overwhelmed, that she wanted a different kind of life, that she had asked us not to look for her.