worn backpack, her eyes narrowed with a cruelty that had become all too familiar over the years. “Get off Ashley’s property, you homeless junkie!” she screamed, the words intended to wound and diminish me in front of the neighbors.
I didn’t flinch. I had spent years being the family scapegoat, the one whose every mistake was magnified and whose every success was ignored. Standing there in the August heat, I felt a strange sense of calm. The lake behind the house glittered, indifferent to the domestic war unfolding on its
