First Sunday away from home, and mum calls to ask if you've eaten

The first Sunday with no classes. No close friends yet, a rented room so quiet he can hear the fan. He cooks a packet of instant noodles with an egg and eats it at the desk that is also the dining table and the laptop stand. Halfway through, the phone buzzes: mum, video call.

He pushes the bowl out of frame before answering, so she won't feel sorry for him. "Have you eaten?" — "Yes, mum, I had rice." The lie comes easily. She talks about the dog, the neighbours, the pot of braised fish she made that afternoon — and only halfway through remembers he isn't home to eat it. It turns out he isn't the only one hiding something. She hasn't got used to him being gone either.

After the call he opens an old clip on his phone: mum at the stove, smoke rising, her voice grumbling "move, let me cook". He replays that exact part, the part where she's telling him off. Back home, that line used to annoy him. Now he turns the volume up so this strange room has her voice in it. It isn't the fish he misses. In this room, that clip is the only thing that still smells like home.

Nobody calls him in for dinner. Nobody scolds him. Exactly the freedom he used to wish for at home. Mum texts, teasing: "free at last, huh?" He looks at the message for a while, then types back: I'll come home this weekend.

At home, all I wanted was to leave. Once I left, I was finally allowed to miss it.

Maybe everyone has a Sunday like that — the first day you're free, and the first day you learn what missing home feels like. On yours, did mum call?