New floors.
A massive television.
Leather furniture.
Granite countertops.
The SUV outside.
Derek’s new phone.
His new business.
Clara had broken sandals and a blouse I remembered buying her six years earlier.
I looked at my mother.
“How much of my money did you use for her treatment?”
Vivian finally admitted they had paid for a few visits.
Clara corrected her.
“Two.”
I looked at her.
“Two?”
She nodded.
Two visits in eleven months.
I helped Clara stand and told her we were going to the hospital.
Vivian immediately blocked the door.
She accused me of disappearing for four years and coming home to treat my own family like criminals.
I slowly rolled up my sleeve and showed her the burn scars and cuts from years at the shop.
“I worked entire nights. I slept in a room with four other men. I spent two Christmases completely alone so none of you would lack a single thing here.”
Vivian stared at me.
“And we didn’t.”
I looked at Clara.
Thin.
Weak.
Barely able to stand.
Then I looked back at my mother.
“She did.”
Derek blamed me for leaving.
Vivian said Clara had brought everything on herself.
Clara held tightly to my shirt, waiting for me to explode.
I didn’t.
Instead, I reached into my pocket…
and pulled out my phone.
What none of them knew was that while I was flying home, seventeen calls from Canada had been waiting for me.
