PART 1
“I’m not going to live under the same roof as an ex-convict,” I heard Sheila, my sister-in-law, say right behind the door of the house I had dreamed of stepping back into for two years.
I stood still on the porch with my hand on my suitcase. My heart was pounding fast. Inside the house, my mom, Abigail, was speaking in a low voice, but I could hear her clearly.
“It’s for everyone’s good, Sheila. If Summer comes back, she’ll want her share of the house,” Abigail sighed. “With a criminal record, no one will hire her, no one will marry her, and she’ll be stuck here forever.”
Sheila let out a dry, mean laugh.
“Well, she should rent a room somewhere else because I’m pregnant,” Sheila said. “I need peace, not a criminal hanging around the living room.”
I felt like my heart was breaking. That house in Columbus wasn’t grand, but I had paid for a big part of it with years of hard work at a clothing warehouse downtown. Before I went to prison, my father used to say I was the daughter who supported the family. My mother would make me coffee every Sunday and call me her strong girl. My brother Austin even cried in my arms the night he begged me to take the blame for him. Now, behind that door, everyone was talking about me like a disease.