My mom left me when I was 11, and my dad raised me alone. Now 29, with the house in my name, she suddenly called, saying she was terminally ill and wanted to move back in. I refused: “You didn’t raise me. You left.”
The next day, she collapsed on my front steps. The police brought her to the hospital, but I wasn’t her emergency contact. I felt guilty, but after years of grieving a mother who abandoned me, I couldn’t open my door to someone who left me first.
