CHAPTER 4: THE ECHO IN THE MAILBOX
CHAPTER 4: THE ECHO IN THE MAILBOX
The peace lasted exactly two years.
It was a beautiful, fragile kind of quiet.
The kind of quiet you don't fully trust because you spent a lifetime bracing for the next blow.
Then, a certified letter arrived in our new city.
The return address made my blood run cold.
State Juvenile Corrections.
Chase was being released.
Two years of intense, mandatory therapy.
Two years of anger management.
And now, he was stepping back into the outside world.
But the letter hadn't been sent by a warden or a social worker.
It was written in my sister Lauren’s frantic, uneven handwriting.
Noah was at school when I opened it.
The kitchen was warm, sunlight streaming across the counter, but my hands were freezing.
May you like
I read the first line.
He’s coming home, Evelyn. And my parents want to finish what we started.
