“Stay Home — It’ll Be Easier.” My Parents Celebrated My Twin’s 25th Birthday And Left Me Out

anything has started to bloom. I’ve always liked birthdays in theory. In practice they tend to be specific measurements of where you are versus where you expected to be, and lately mine had been measuring a distance I didn’t know how to close.

My phone stayed silent all morning.

No call. No text. Not even the brief, perfunctory Happy birthday I might continue reading …