My Parents Left Me in the ICU and Flew to Cancun Until I Saw the Same Name on the Visitor Log Every Night

the truth.

“You’re awake,” she said. “Welcome back. I’m Dana.”

My voice came out rougher than I expected, like something that had been disused. “My family.”

Dana paused. I had spent six years learning to hear what lived inside pauses, to read the half-second between a question and an answer as its own kind of information. This one said: what I am about continue reading …