My Parents Doubled My Rent So My Unemployed Sister Could Move In, So I Moved Out and Took Everything

against my jacket pocket, touching the knife handle through fabric. The simple contact steadied me.

As the bus moved through the night, memories rose up uninvited.

Matthew at seven years old, crying stubbornly in a storm because our favorite cow got loose. The rain had been brutal, wind slicing across the pasture, the kind of weather that makes everything continue reading …