“I refuse to share a home with an ex-con.” I heard my sister-in-law, Sheila, declare from just behind the front door of the house I had spent two years longing to return to.
I froze on the front step with one hand gripping my suitcase.
My heart hammered inside my chest.
From within the house, my mother, Abigail, spoke quietly, yet every word reached my ears.
“It’s better for everyone this way, Sheila. If Summer comes home, she’ll ask for her portion of the house,” Abigail said with a weary sigh. “With a prison record, nobody will employ her, nobody will want to marry her, and she’ll end up staying here forever.”
Sheila answered with a cold, mocking chuckle.
“Then she can rent a place somewhere else because I’m expecting a baby,” Sheila replied. “I need calm, not an ex-con sitting around my living room.”
It felt as though my heart had shattered. Our house in Columbus was never luxurious, yet I had paid for much of it through years of exhausting work at a clothing warehouse downtown. Before I was sent to prison, my father often said I was the child who kept the family afloat. Every Sunday, my mother brewed coffee for me and proudly called me her strong daughter. Even my brother Austin sobbed in my embrace the night he begged me to accept the bl@me for him. Now, beyond that doorway, they spoke about me as though I were something contagious.
Drawing in a slow breath, I pressed the doorbell. My mother opened it, and her eyes grew wide as if she had seen an apparition.
“Summer! Sweetheart… you’re home,” Abigail whispered.
She gave me only the briefest embrace, her body tense.
Then her gaze traveled from my face to my feet.
“You’ve become so skinny. My poor girl, you must have gone through so much in there,” she murmured.
If I had not overheard her moments earlier, I might actually have believed those words.
“I’m alright, Mom,” I answered, forcing down the ache in my throat. “I came here directly from the state prison.”
The instant I stepped into the living room, Sheila walked over carrying a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Without even greeting me, she began spraying me from my shoulders all the way to my shoes.
“Don’t take it personally,” Sheila said as she emptied the bottle over my clothing. “I’m just washing away the bad energy from where you’ve been.”
The harsh scent stung my nose. Austin remained near the hallway, staring silently at the floor. My father, Lawrence, never even rose from the sofa. He continued watching television as though my arrival was nothing more than an inconvenience.
“I’m going to put my belongings in my room,” I said.
I headed toward the bedroom where I had slept since childhood. The moment I pushed the door open, my blood turned to ice. My bed had v@nished.
My books, photographs, treasured keepsakes, and the sewing machine I had purchased with my very first paycheck were all gone.
In their place sat bags filled with old clothing, cartons of diapers, a brand-new stroller, and broken pieces of furniture.
“What happened to my room?” I asked my mother.
Abigail lowered her head, unable to meet my gaze.
“Sweetheart, it’s been two years, and this house isn’t very big,” Abigail replied softly. “Sheila needs the room for the baby’s things.”
“What about everything that belonged to me?” I asked.
My father crushed his cigarette into a plate.
“You didn’t have any use for those things anymore,” Lawrence called from the living room. “We weren’t about to keep a museum for someone who ended up in prison.”
Those words wounded me more deeply than any night I had spent behind bars.
“So where am I supposed to sleep?” I asked.
My mother pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and placed them on the table.
“Find yourself an inexpensive motel for a few nights. You’re thirty years old now, Summer,” Abigail said without warmth.
I turned toward Austin. He refused to look at me.
“Is that what you believe too, Austin?” I asked.
For a brief moment, uncertainty crossed his face.
“You’re my sister,” Austin said quietly. “Of course I want to help you.”
A tiny spark of hope flickered inside me. But Sheila immediately folded her arms and shot him a sharp look.
“Austin, don’t even begin,” Sheila snapped. “The house already belongs to you now. Your sister is thirty years old. She can’t just come back here pretending everything is perfectly fine.”
That was when I understood.
They were not asking me to leave for only a few days.
They had already transferred the house into Austin’s name, making sure I was erased before I even came home.
