When I was twelve, our family lost the house where I’d spent my childhood.
I still remember the moving truck parked outside.
The empty rooms.
The smell of cardboard boxes.
And my father standing in the kitchen, staring at the doorway where he’d marked my height every birthday.
The marks were uneven, written in different colors.
One year he’d used a green pencil because he couldn’t find his usual blue one.
As we prepared to leave, I started crying.
Dad knelt beside me.
“Sweetheart, a house is only walls.”
“But it’s our home,” I sobbed.
He wrapped his arms around me.
“Then we’ll make another home. As long as we’re together, we can do that.”
We never had the opportunity.
Four years later, when I was sixteen, Dad died suddenly from a heart attack.
After his death, my mother’s bitterness only grew.
