She laughed more.
She slept better.
She stopped jumping every time her phone vibrated.
Then, one Saturday afternoon, there was a knock at her apartment door.
Emma looked through the peephole and saw both parents standing there.
For a second she couldn’t move.
Her mother looked smaller than Emma remembered.
Her father looked irritated and tired, as if the inconvenience of this visit had already exhausted him.
Emma opened the door but kept the chain on.
“How did you get this address?” she asked.
“Your aunt knew someone at your old office,” her mother said quickly.
“Emma, what is this?”
Emma almost laughed at the phrasing.
As if her life were a mess in the garage that needed identifying.
“I moved,” she said.
Her father stepped forward.
“For three months? Without a real conversation?”
Emma stared at him.
“I left a note.”
“That note was ridiculous,” he snapped.
“You overreacted.”
There it was.
No apology.
No confusion about what they had done.
Just irritation that consequences had lasted longer than they expected.
Her mother folded her arms.
