HOME SWEET HOME
I knocked anyway.
Not politely. Not carefully.
I knocked like a son who had been counting down 1,095 days. Like someone who still believed he had a right to be there.
The door opened, and the warmth I’d imagined—the smell of old books and sawdust—didn’t come rushing out.
Linda stood there.
My stepmother.
Her hair was styled in a rigid bob, like she’d just come back from a salon. Her silk blouse looked crisp, expensive. And her eyes—those sharp, measured eyes—scanned me from head to toe like I was a delivery that had arrived at the wrong address.
For one second, I thought she might flinch. Or soften. Or at least look surprised to see the stepson she hadn’t visited once.
Instead, her expression stayed flat, a mask of indifference.
“You’re out,” she said, her tone devoid of emotion, as if she were commenting on the weather.
“Where’s my dad?” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, rusty and too loud in the quiet morning air.
Linda’s mouth tightened, a small purse of annoyance.
Then she said it. Calmly. Coldly.
