On my sixty-sixth birthday, my son and his wife handed me a list of house chores for twelve days, kissed the grandchildren goodbye in the glow of our old Virginia driveway lights, and flew off on an eleven‑thousand‑two‑hundred‑dollar Mediterranean cruise. No card. No cake.Not a single greeting. I watched their black BMW roll down the gravel drive I’d patched a hundred times with my own hands, taillights disappearing toward the two‑lane blacktop that leads back to Route 7 and, eventually, to I‑66 and Dulles. The air smelled like cut hay and gasoline.

Somewhere down the road a dog barked. In the garage apartment above my head, the window I slept behind reflected back an old man’s silhouette. That night, in that same cramped apartment, I accidentally saw an email my son had sent his wife about an “assisted living facility for the elderly.”

I didn’t argue.