I heard the familiar chime of my phone. It was a call from Dad. I let it ring out, savoring the moment, knowing he would never have anticipated this abrupt turn of events. Minutes later, a flurry of text messages came through, each more panicked than the last.
“Where did you go?”
“How can you just leave like that?”
“You can’t do this to us!”
The irony was rich. The man who had always lectured me about responsibility was now scrambling because he couldn’t handle his own. I imagined him pacing the length of the living room, the sunlight glinting off those same windows I’d cleaned countless times, the bills piling up on the counter that I’d always managed.
