I heard the knock before it actually landed.
Three soft taps, spaced out like whoever was on the other side was trying to sound polite instead of desperate. My building in downtown Austin has one of those video doorbells that chime through your phone, but I didn’t need the screen. I knew that rhythm.
For a second I just stood there in the hallway, hand resting on the deadbolt, listening to my own heartbeat.
Behind me, the apartment was quiet—Lenora was at her book club, my laptop still open on the kitchen island, emails waiting. I could’ve pretended I wasn’t home. I’d done that for years as a kid.
Stay still, stay small, maybe they’ll go away.
I’m not nine anymore.
I undid the lock and pulled the door open.
My mother’s face appeared first, framed by the hallway light. Darlene looked older in the way people do when life has carved lines into them but hasn’t softened a thing. Her hair was pulled back too tight, lips painted the same shade of rose she used to wear to church.
Behind her, half a step back like always, stood my father, Arless, hands in the pockets of a jacket that didn’t fit quite right.
“Taran,” she breathed, like my name tasted unfamiliar. “Honey. You look… successful.”
Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, taking in the high ceilings, the framed art, the city view that cost more in rent than they’d ever paid on a mortgage.
She wasn’t seeing me. She was inventorying.
My father cleared his throat. “We didn’t come here to fight,” he said.
“We came because family helps family. After everything we did to raise you, we thought—”
There it was.
The invoice hidden inside the greeting.
I felt my hand tighten on the edge of the door. It had been twenty‑one years since they’d last left me on a doorstep.
Twenty‑one years since the word curse came out of my mother’s mouth like a diagnosis. They hadn’t called for birthdays, hadn’t shown up for graduation, hadn’t sent a single card when the articles started using words like founder and Forbes.
But now they were here. In my hallway.
With their palms out.
“We just need a little help with your brother’s tuition,” my mother added when I didn’t respond fast enough. “You’re doing so well. You owe it to the family to give back.”
There was that word again.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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