But I wasn’t thinking about the past.
I was thinking about one thing.
My father.
Every night inside, I had pictured him in the same place: sitting in his old armchair by the window, the light from the porch lamp washing over the familiar lines of his face. In my head, he was always waiting. Always alive. Always holding the version of me that existed before the courts, before the headlines, before the world decided I was guilty.
I didn’t stop to eat. I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t even check the little paper with the reentry office address.
I went straight home.
Or what I thought was home.
The bus dropped me three blocks away. I ran the last stretch, lungs burning, heart pounding like it was trying to make up for lost years. The street looked mostly the same—same cracked sidewalks, same maple tree leaning over the corner. But as I got closer, the details started to feel wrong.
The porch railing was still there, but the paint was fresher. The flower beds were different. New cars filled the driveway, shiny and unfamiliar, like the house had been claimed by a life I’d never been invited into.
I slowed down.
Still, I walked up the steps.
The door was no longer the dull navy my father had picked because “it hides the dirt.” Now it was an expensive-looking charcoal gray. And where the welcome mat used to be—plain brown, always crooked—there was a fancy one with clean lettering:
HOME SWEET HOME
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