Chapter <b>111 </b>


    (Scarlett’s POV)


    I’m happy. James and ir are keeping the house.


    24 Fou


    I’ve been meaning to visit them, to give them my wishes at their new house. But business at the bakery has been booming. I could barely get a breather between breaks let alone get the time <i>to </i>think about anything else.


    But today is my day off. Strapping Lily in her car seat, I decide to take a look at the old house before visiting James and ir,


    But the moment I turn onto Maple Street, something feels off.


    There are moving trucks in the driveway. Boxes scattered across the frontwn. Strangers carry furniture I recognize the antique dining table where I did homework, the blue armchair where ir used to read me bedtime stories.


    My heart stops.


    “Mama, why are those people in Grandma’s house?” Lily asks from the backseat.


    I can’t answer. Can’t breathe. Can’t process what I’m seeing. Jasper promised me they wouldn’t sell the house.


    Parking across the street, I sit in the car for a moment, hoping this is just some kind of mistake. Maybe James and ir decided to donate some furniture. Maybe they’re just cleaning out storage.


    But then I see a man toss something into the dumpster they’ve ced at the curb. Something that makes my blood freeze.


    My kindergarten graduation photo. The one where I’m missing my two front teeth and grinning at the camera while James and ir beam behind me. <fn8453> This text is hosted at find?novel</fn8453>


    “Stay in the car, baby,” I tell Lily, my voice hollow.


    “But Mama-”


    “Stay in the car.”


    I cross the street on unsteady legs. The closer I get, the worse it bes. The dumpster is full of my life- photo albums, childhood toys, the ceramic handprint I made in second grade art ss. Everything that documented my life, that once proved existed in this family.


    “Excuse me,” I call out to the man who threw away my photo.


    He turns around. He’s young, maybe early thirties, with kind eyes and work–worn hands. “Yes, ma’am?”


    “What are you doing? Why are you throwing away these things<b>?</b><b>” </b>


    “Oh, we bought the house. The previous owner said we could throw out whatever we didn’t want.” He gestures toward the dumpster. “Most of this stuff is pretty old. We have our own family photos to put up, you know?”


    The words cut through me like a de. “You bought the house? From who?”


    “Um, James Stone, I think? Nice man. Said he needed to sell quickly.”


    18


    James sold the house. After promising he wouldn’t. After Jasper called me just days ago to say they were keeping it…he still sold the house.


    “When?” My voicees out as a croak.


    “Last week. We closed on Friday.” The man’s face shifts to concern. “Are you okay, miss? You look pale.”


    I’m not okay. I’m dying inside, watching twenty–three years of my life get thrown away like garbage,


    “Those photos,” I point to the dumpster with a shaking finger. “Could I… could I take them?”


    His expression softens with understanding. “You used to live here.”


    I nod, not trusting my voice.


    “Take whatever you want,” he says gently. “We were just going to throw it all away anyway.”


    I climb into the dumpster, not caring about the dirt smearing my dress or the smell. My hands shake as I pull


    out photo after photo – birthday parties, Christmas mornings, family vacations. All of them featuring me


    smiling at the two people who were once parents to me.


    “Mama!” Lily’s voice cuts through my shock. She’s standing at the edge of the driveway, tears streaming


    down her face. “What happened to Grandma’s house?”


    “It’s okay, baby,” I lie, clutching a photo of myself at age five, sitting on ir’sp while she braided my hair.


    “Everything’s okay.”


    But it’s not okay. Nothing is okay. And they never will be again.


    I find the family album where ir recorded all my milestones – first tooth, first word, first day of school.


    Pages and pages of careful documentation, proof that I mattered to them once.


    “Here, let me help you.”


    I look up to see Mr. Hernandez – the man who now owns my childhood. He’s holding a box, his face kind and


    sad.


    “I have three kids,” he says quietly. “I can’t imagine throwing away their memories like this. This is wrong.”


    “It’s not your fault,” I whisper.


    “Maybe not. But it’s not right either.” He starts loading photos and keepsakes into the box. “Take your time. Take everything you need.”


    Lily appears beside me, her small hands carefully lifting a crushed photo of James teaching me to ride a


    bike. “This is you and Grandpa, Mama.“/


    “Yes, baby. It is.”


    “Why did they throw it away?<b>” </b>


    I don’t have an answer for that. Don’t know how to exin that sometimes people change. You won’t always


    be family to the people who raise you.


    We work in silence for the next hour, Lily and me salvaging what we can from the wreckage of my childhood. Photo albums, report cards, the jewelry box James gave me for my sixteenth birthday. All of it damaged, some of it beyond repair.


    My wedding photo with Jasper is torn down the middle, separating us even in the picture. The irony isn’t lost


    <b>on </b>me.


    “Is this everything?” Mr. Hernandez asks when we’ve filled three boxes.


    I look back at the dumpster, at the house where I grew up, at the life I used to have scattered across a


    stranger’swn.


    “Yeah,” I say. “This is everything.”


    Lily helps me carry the boxes to the car, her little face serious with concentration. She doesn’t understand what’s happening, but she knows Mama is hurt.


    “Don’t be sad, Mama. I’ll always be with you!” she rubs my head as I buckle her into her car seat.


    I touch her cheek, thankful for this little girl. After Chloe, she might be the only <i>one </i>who loves me unconditionally. She will never let me experience the pain of being abandoned.


    “Yes, Mama isn’t sad. She has you.”


    “Will Grandma and Grandpa be sad too? When they find out their stuff got thrown away?”


    I think about James and ir, probably having dinner in their sterile new house, believing they’d preserved my childhood home for their granddaughter. Believing Virginia when she told them whatever lie convinced them to sign those papers.


    Or maybe they knew. Maybe this was always the n.


    “I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe.”


    As we drive away, I catch onest glimpse of the house in my rearview mirror. The Hernandez children are ying in the front yard now, theirughter carrying on the evening breeze. They’ll make new memories there,


    better ones.


    But twenty–three years of my life are in boxes in my backseat, damaged and discarded like they never mattered at all.


    And for the first time since I left that family four years ago, I wonder if there’s any ce I ever belonged.


    Violet Moon


    #Vote#!


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