On My 18th Birthday, My Parents Drove Me to the Ai…

The morning my parents erased me from their lives, the car smelled like fake pine trees and rain-damp upholstery. I remember that detail with a clarity that still feels cruel. Not my mother’s face, because she never turned around.

Not my father’s eyes, because he kept them on the road. Not even the first sight of the airport terminal rising ahead of us in the gray morning light. What I remember most is that sharp, chemical sweetness swinging from the rearview mirror, a little cardboard tree twisting back and forth with every turn, pretending the air inside that car was clean.

It was my eighteenth birthday. I had woken before my alarm, which was unusual because I had barely slept. For weeks, I had been telling myself not to expect anything.