“Your sister’s family gets the guest room. Your kids can sleep on the floor.” Mom tossed two sleeping bags at my six-year-old. My sister laughed. “Should’ve booked a hotel.” I looked at my children kneeling, whispered, “Pack your things, babies,” and we left at 11 p.m. Three days later, Mom discovered what I quietly canceled.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, and walked across the parking lot in the rain without a jacket.

The bathroom was empty. Fluorescent light, the blue-white kind that makes everyone look like they’ve been awake for three days. A mirror over the sink, spotted with water stains. Paper towel dispenser half-empty. The faucet dripped in a rhythm I counted without meaning to.

One. Two. Three.

One. Two. Three.

I looked at myself.

I was still wearing the earrings. The pearl studs I’d put on six hours ago while standing in front of my bedroom mirror in Rochester, turning my head left and right, making sure they were even.

My nice earrings.

The ones I wore for my mother. The ones that said, I made an effort. I showed up. Please notice me.

And standing there under that fluorescent light, rain in my hair, grout still faintly visible under my thumbnail from a kitchen renovation my mother’s Instagram followers thought happened by magic, I saw it.

Twenty-nine years old.

Dental hygienist.

Mother of two.

Standing in a rest stop bathroom on Thanksgiving Eve because my own mother gave my children sleeping bags on the floor and my sister a bed.