“Honey,” she said, “it might be better if you stayed with your Aunt Marcy for a while.”
“A while.”
I packed the way a ten-year-old packs when the grown-ups are rushing her: badly, crying, confused.
They stuffed the rest of my things into three plastic garbage bags, loaded them into the trunk, and drove me across town to my aunt’s tiny yellow house.
I want you to hold onto those three plastic bags.
I did.
I kept them, folded flat, in the bottom of a drawer, for twelve years.
I didn’t fully know why.
I just knew that someday they were going to matter.
Chapter 2: The Yellow House
Aunt Marcy thought I was coming for the weekend.
She got me for the rest of my childhood.
She opened the door of that little yellow house, took one look at a ten-year-old clutching garbage bags, and pulled me into a hug so hard it pushed the air out of me.
