That was nine months ago.
I turned around.
My mother, Evelyn, was standing at the bottom of the stairs in a cream-colored cardigan I’d never seen before, holding a mug of coffee. She looked at me and then at the open trash bags like I was the one who’d made a mess.
My father, Richard, stood behind her with his arms crossed.
My father was a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Twenty-two years in. After he retired, he took a civilian job at Fort Carson doing contract oversight. He still wore his hair high and tight. He still stood like he was waiting for someone to salute him.
“I told you my return date,” I said.
My mother shrugged a little. “Well. Things changed.”
“What things?”
My father stepped closer. “We needed to make some adjustments while you were gone.”
Adjustments.
That’s what they decided to call it.
I looked past them, toward the living room.
The furniture had been moved. My grandfather’s old leather armchair, the one that sat by the window for forty years, was gone. In its place was a big gray sectional couch. There was a huge TV on the wall where my grandfather’s bookcase used to be. And on the walls, there were framed signs in curly letters. BLESSED. GATHER. HOME IS WHERE OUR STORY BEGINS.
None of it was mine.
“Where’s Chloe?” I asked.
My mother smiled. It was her special smile. The one she only ever used for my sister.
“Oh, she’s upstairs resting.”
“Resting.”
“She’s twenty-two weeks,” my mother said, like I should have known. “The doctor wants her off her feet as much as possible.”
I hadn’t known. Nobody had told me.
My sister was pregnant, and nobody had thought to send one email to the other side of the world.
