“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.
