Chapter 9 - Breaking the Chains
A month after the trial ended, I returned to my parents' house for the very last time.
Accompanied by Detective Cruz and two police officers to ensure my safety, I stepped into the grand, silent foyer of the West End mansion.
The house smelled stale, like old dust and unwashed dishes. The campaign posters that once filled the front lawn had been ripped down, leaving brown patches on the green grass.
My mother was sitting alone at the heavy mahogany kitchen table—the same table where she had pressed a bag of melting frozen peas against my broken arm four months ago.
She looked up as I walked in, carrying a large cardboard moving box.
"Olivia," she whispered, her voice frail and dry. "You came home?"
"I came to get my books and my clothes, Mom," I said calmly.
She stood up slowly, her hands reaching out toward me, then falling uselessly to her sides. "Your father... your father left yesterday. He moved into an apartment downtown. The bank is foreclosing on the house next month."
I didn't say anything. I just kept packing my books from the hallway shelf into my box.
"Why did you have to take it so far, Liv?" Mom wept, tears spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. "We were your family. We protected you. We gave you a home."
I stopped packing. I turned slowly to face her, holding a heavy hardcover book in my left hand.
"You didn't protect me, Mom," I said, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. "You protected the man who hit me. You watched me bleed, and you handed me a cardigan so the neighbors wouldn't see."
"I was trying to keep our family together!" she sobbed.
"No," I replied firmly. "You were keeping a lie together. And it crushed all of us."
I picked up my cardboard box, turning my back on her for the last time.
May you like
"Goodbye, Mom."
As I walked out the front door into the crisp afternoon air, I heard her weeping softly in the dark, empty kitchen. But I didn't turn back. The heavy weight that had rested on my shoulders for twenty-four years finally slid off, crashing into the dust behind me.
