I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. My mom opened the door, and her eyes widened like she had seen a ghost.
“Summer! Daughter… you’re back,” Abigail said.
She barely hugged me, her arms stiff. Then she looked me up and down.
“You’re very thin. My poor thing, you must have suffered a lot there,” she whispered.
If I hadn’t heard her a minute ago, maybe I would have believed her.
“I’m fine, Mom,” I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I came straight from the state prison.”
As soon as I walked into the living room, Sheila appeared with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Without saying hello, she started spraying me from my shoulders down to my shoes.
“Don’t be offended,” Sheila said, emptying the bottle on my clothes. “It’s to clean the bad vibes from where you were.”
The sharp smell burned my nose. Austin stood by the hallway, staring at the floor and saying nothing. My dad, Lawrence, didn’t even get up from the couch. He kept watching TV like my return was just an annoyance.
“I’m going to leave my things in my room,” I said.
I walked to the room where I had slept since I was a child. When I opened the door, my blood ran cold. My bed was gone. My books, my photos, my keepsakes, and the sewing machine I bought with my first paycheck had all disappeared. In their place were bags of old clothes, boxes of diapers, a new baby stroller, and broken furniture.
“What happened here?” I asked my mom.