I Returned For Thanksgiving To Find My Parents Gone—And My Father Waiting

up. Back Monday.

—B

There was a smiley face drawn at the bottom. A fucking smiley face.

I stared at the paper, reading it once, twice, three times. Each time, the words burned deeper into my brain.

Mental health break.

They had turned off the heat to save on the electric bill while they were gone, leaving a seventy-two-year-old man with stage four pancreatic continue reading …