My parents left me with Grandpa when I was five and never came back. The morning after his funeral, they showed up with a moving truck. Then my sister walked inside, looked around, and said

He looked toward the truck and told the movers,

“Start with the furniture upstairs.”

Then Brianna brushed past me into the foyer.

“God, it smells like an old man in here.”

Something inside me went completely still.

I was five when my parents left me with Grandpa “for the weekend.”

They never came back.

No birthday calls.

No Christmas cards.

No explanation.