My mother left me hungry and lonely at 16. When my…

My mother, Paula, hated quiet. She filled every room with sound—reality TV shows blasting at volume fifty, phone conversations on speaker where she complained to her friends about how the world had wronged her, or just the heavy thud of her pacing when she was between moods. But that Tuesday night, opening the door felt like stepping into a vacuum.

The television was black. The air smelled stale, like old coffee and dust. I called out her name, but my voice just bounced off the peeling beige paint in the hallway.

I dropped my backpack on the linoleum floor and walked into the kitchen. The refrigerator hummed, a mechanical rattle that sounded deafening in the quiet. I opened it.

A half-empty carton of milk, a jar of pickles, and a shriveled lemon. The frozen burritos were gone. I went to her bedroom.

The door was ajar. I did not panic immediately. Panic is a luxury for people who are not used to instability.