The Eighteen-Year-Old Rose Withered Overnight

On my eighteenth birthday, my adoptive parents went to enormous trouble to throw me a coming-of-age celebration. After I blew out the candles, Mom pulled a plane ticket to a foreign country out of her pocket and said gently: "Our Zoe is a grown young lady now. Your dad and I have worked half our lives for one thing, to give you the best life we can." "The ticket is for tomorrow. Five hundred thousand in travel funds has already been transferred to your card. You leave at dawn."