I spent a week preparing my townhouse until it looked like a spread in Architectural Digest. I bought fresh lilies that smelled of spring and heavy linen napkins. I spent sixteen hours slow-cooking the pot roast my mother used to make during the rare years we were happy, and I hand-whisked the lemon meringue pie my father always claimed no bakery could execute properly.

Every night for a week, I set the table for four. I lit the tapered candles, their amber glow reflecting off the polished silver. And every night, those candles burned down into puddles of wax while my phone remained as silent as a tomb.

They were only thirty minutes away. They were staying at my sister Hannah’s house, a place of perpetual chaos and sticky fingerprints. I watched their visit unfold through the glowing portal of social media. Hannah posted photo after photo: my parents laughing on her porch, my father holding her toddlers, my mother drinking expensive wine—wine I had likely funded—acting as if this were a family retreat that I had simply failed to attend.

On their final day in the city, while the roast sat congealing on the counter and the four plates remained untouched, my phone finally buzzed. It was a text from my mother: “Maybe next time, sweetie. The kids just couldn’t let us go.”