They Said My House Was No Longer Mine—I Let Them Believe It

Then for a week in the summer. By the time I was in high school, I spent more nights there than at my parents’ house.

My parents didn’t object. Not really.

“It’s good that you help them,” my mother said one afternoon, scrolling through her phone. “They adore you.”

She said it like it was convenient. Like my presence there was one less thing she had to continue reading …