The suitcase wheels clicked across our Savannah foyer like a countdown timer I couldn’t stop. Each rotation pulled my mother closer to the door and further from any responsibility she had to the eleven-year-old kid standing barefoot on the cool tile, watching his world quietly collapse. “You’re independent now,” Mara Hollis said with that bright, rehearsed smile she wore like armor.
She was already somewhere else in her mind—cafés in Paris, museums in Rome, freedom she’d been craving like oxygen.
“You’re not a baby anymore. Just order food if you need to.”
Independent.
The word hung in the humid summer air between us, dressed up like a gift when it was really abandonment with better packaging. I stood there holding a crumpled twenty-dollar bill that was warm from my sweating palm, staring at the woman who was supposed to protect me as she prepared to leave me behind for an entire month.
No babysitter.
No neighbor on standby. No list on the fridge explaining what to eat or who to call if something went wrong. Not even a real goodbye—just a quick kiss pressed to my forehead so fast it felt more like a stamp than affection.
My father, Derek, moved through the room with his phone glued to his ear, half-listening to whoever was on the other end while he carried bags like an assistant rather than a parent.
When he glanced at me, it wasn’t to check my face or read my fear. It was to make sure I wasn’t making a scene that would complicate their departure.
“You’ll be fine,” he said into the phone, then to me without changing tone, as if I was part of the same conversation. “Be good.
Be good.”
Like this was about behavior.
Like my job was to make their European vacation easier. I wanted to ask a hundred questions. Who’s coming over?
What if I get sick?
What if I run out of food? What if someone knocks on the door and I don’t know what to say?
But every question felt like it would make me look small, and in our house, small was something you got punished for. My mother loved the idea of me being mature the way she loved the idea of a perfect family photo—clean lines, no mess, no visible need.
She didn’t say she’d call every night.
She didn’t say Mrs. Barrow next door had a key. She didn’t say my school knew they’d be gone.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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