My Family Stole My Run I Returned A Leader Chapter 31
“I’m leaving this here.”
“I don’t want to wear it anymore.”
My mother panicked.
“You’re moving out, too?”
“You’re not better yet. How can you live alone?”
Bella gripped the handle of her suitcase.
“There are therapists there.”
“They’ll help me, but they won’t do everything for me just because I cry.”
“That’s part of the program.”
My mother hurried after her, trying to grab her arm.
“Bella, you’re all I have left.”
Bella stopped for a moment.
“You don’t only have me.”
“You need a daughter who can’t live without you.”
“Before, I was willing to be that person.”
“Now, I’m not.”
She opened the door and, for the first time, did not wait for anyone in the family to carry her luggage for her.
Tony moved out that same day.
Before he left, he repacked the old transfer slips and loose change Mrs. Rossi had shown them back into the rusted tin.
Then he went to Gray Valley.
Mrs. Rossi didn’t let him in.
“I’m not the one who gets to forgive you for Paloma,” she told him through the gate.
Tony held the tin, his face flushed.
“I know.”
“I just wanted to return these.”
“You can’t return them.”
Mrs. Rossi looked at him.
“Once you trampled on what Paloma wanted to give you, there’s no giving it back.”
Tony stood there a long time. In the end, he took the tin away with him.
He never contacted me.
My father withdrew the remaining family objections and covered all the hearing costs.
Every night, my mother still wandered to the door of that little storage room.
The room had been empty for three years.
Now, even the person who used to clean the house for them was gone.
At last, they had the quiet family life they wanted.
Only this time, no one thought it felt like happiness.