I wrapped my jacket tightly, as if to protect myself, as the screen gleamed to life in the center of my palm. My heart raced. I typed in my password.

Nothing.

I was stunned. Nothing?

What had I been hoping for?

And then, descending from the top of the screen, as if it had taken a moment to register, a voice mail from my mother, asking me to please call her back when I got the message.

I called back and her phone went to voice mail. Then I tried my father—voice mail, too. My ears started to ring, and I could have pretended it was worry—neither of them had picked up—but they often didn’t answer, and besides it was Sunday afternoon, so they could easily be at a museum or the supermarket or otherwise occupying their time. And yet I had the sudden and sure knowledge that I needed to go back uptown. Not to check on them; not even, really, to discuss whatever it was my mother wanted to broach. It was something more troubling: it was I who needed to talk to them.

The ride uptown. The walk to their building, too-fit parents guiding their expensively clad children by the hands. Hello, hello, to the doorman, how are you—and then I was in the elevator, alone, staring at my reflection in the mirror, my wild hair, ascending to the twelfth floor.

The elevator doors opened. The garish carpet. The night before, my father standing in the doorway, taking me in, That’s very short—I closed my eyes as I walked, the better to block out the deluge, trailing my fingertips along the walls as I always did, this time to guide me where I needed to go.

I rang the doorbell and waited a few beats, but no one came. This wasn’t a shock; since they hadn’t picked up their phones, I’d known they would probably be out. I would let myself in and wait for them inside.