But I wasn’t ready to give it to them in the street.
“Can I speak to my father?” I asked.
One of the officers glanced toward the house.
“You can, as long as you feel safe.”
That word caught me off guard.
Safe.
I had spent years sleeping in unfamiliar places, under unfamiliar skies, surrounded by alarms and uncertainty. I had learned to distinguish danger from discomfort.
The house did not feel dangerous.
It felt worse.
It felt like a place that had taken the shape of home and emptied itself of everything that made it one.
My mother opened the door only after the officer knocked. She kept the chain latched.
“I want to speak with my father,” I said.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the door.
“Your father is not well.”
“I can see that.”
“You need to leave.”
“Why?”
Her eyes flicked toward the camera. “Because this is private.”
“You made it public when you called the police.”
Her face hardened. “I was protecting this family.”
The sentence was so familiar that it felt rehearsed.
She had said it before.
Maybe not to me, but to herself.
My father appeared behind her.
“Diane,” he said softly, “let her in.”
My mother turned. “No.”
“Let her in.”
It was the first time I had heard him contradict her in years.
She looked back at me. For the briefest moment, I saw something beneath her anger. Not remorse. Not yet.
Panic.
Then she unlatched the door.
I stepped inside.
