Chapter 1 - The Cold Threshold
"Dad… my key doesn't work."
I looked at my phone and frowned.
It was nearly seven in the evening.
My daughter, Emma, sounded cold.
"What do you mean it doesn't work?"
"I've tried it ten times."
A strange feeling hit my stomach.
"Are you outside right now?"
"Yeah."
"How long have you been there?"
There was a long pause.
"Since after school."
I sat straight up.
"Emma… what time did you get home?"
"Two o'clock."
My heart stopped.
Five hours.
My eleven-year-old daughter had been sitting outside in the rain for five hours.
"Why didn't you call me sooner?"
"I thought Grandma was sleeping. I didn't want to bother anyone."
I grabbed my car keys.
"I'm coming."
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into my mother's driveway.
Emma was sitting on the front steps.
She was soaked.
Her backpack was wet.
Her cheeks were red from the cold.
The second she saw me, she started crying.
I wrapped my jacket around her.
Then the front door opened.
My mother stepped outside.
She didn't look worried.
She looked annoyed.
"You're finally here."
I stared at her.
"What happened?"
She folded her arms.
"We changed the locks."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"You what?"
"We've all decided it's time."
"Time for what?"
She looked directly at Emma.
"She doesn't live here anymore."
The world seemed to stop.
I had been staying with my mother temporarily while my house was being repaired after a fire.
Emma had been living there too.
I looked at my daughter.
She was shaking.
"You left an eleven-year-old child outside for five hours?"
My mother sighed.
"She needed to learn that people can't stay forever."
I couldn't breathe.
I looked past her and saw my younger brother standing in the hallway.
He didn't say a word.
Neither did his wife.
They had all known.
I looked back at my mother.
"You did this to a child."
She crossed her arms.
"You should be grateful she had a place to stay this long."
Something inside me went completely silent.
I didn't argue.
I didn't shout.
I simply took Emma's hand.
"Come on, sweetheart."
My mother frowned.
"That's it?"
I looked at her.
"That's it."
Then I said the only words I could manage.
"Understood."
Three days later, my mother received a letter.
May you like
And when she opened it, she called me screaming.
My mother thought she had thrown us out of her house. She had no idea that one envelope was about to change everything she believed belonged to her.
