The call came while I was standing in the clinic breakroom pretending not to notice that the microwave smelled like burnt popcorn, one earbud in, a mandatory training video mumbling through policy updates I would not remember by the end of the week, my phone propped against a stack of patient intake forms that kept sliding apart on the counter. My fingers were sticky from a lemon bar someone had left on a paper plate with a note that said ENJOY in too many exclamation marks. Then Ava’s name lit up my screen and everything ordinary about the afternoon ended.

My daughter did not call me during the day. She was twelve. She texted memes.

She sent blurry photographs of the cat sleeping in strange positions. She asked permission in lazy little messages that consisted mostly of the words can I and pls and are you mad. She only called when something was wrong, and even then she usually tried texting first, because calling was, in her words, dramatic.....