Chapter 5 - THE PLACE I WENT INSTEAD
They did not put me in a stranger’s house.
That was the part I had feared most.
Angela found my father’s sister, Aunt Rebecca, through an emergency contact form from second grade.
I had not seen Aunt Rebecca in almost two years.
Mom said she was judgmental.
Aunt Rebecca said Mom stopped answering.
Both things could have been true.
When Angela called her, Aunt Rebecca arrived in forty minutes wearing slippers and a coat over work clothes.
She walked into the house, saw me, and stopped.
Not because of the pantry.
Not because of the dishes.
Because I was holding my backpack like I expected to be blamed for needing somewhere to go.
“Oh, Syd.”
That was all she said before she hugged me.
I did not cry immediately.
My body didn’t know it was safe yet.
That night, I slept in Aunt Rebecca’s guest room under a yellow quilt that smelled like laundry soap and cedar.
She left the hall light on without asking.
There was a glass of water on the nightstand.
A sandwich wrapped in foil.
Clean pajamas folded on the chair.
I stared at all of it for twenty minutes.
Then I cried into the pillow so quietly my chest hurt.
The next morning, Aunt Rebecca made pancakes.
Real ones.
Not from a freezer.
She didn’t ask me to talk while I ate.
That made me like her more.
Adults ask questions when they are uncomfortable with silence.
Aunt Rebecca let silence sit at the table like it belonged.
Over the next week, official things happened.
Meetings.
Calls.
Temporary placement papers.
A family court appointment.
A welfare check report.
Mom sent angry messages.
Then sweet ones.
Then angry again.
You embarrassed me.
I was coming home.
You could have called.
I needed one break.
You made this bigger than it was.
I showed Angela every message.
She read them without looking surprised.
Aunt Rebecca kept saying, “None of this is your job to fix.”
I heard her.
I didn’t fully believe her.
Not yet.
Then something else happened.
Aunt Rebecca asked Angela whether my father’s survivor benefits had been reviewed.
Angela looked at her.
“What benefits?”
Aunt Rebecca looked at me.
I knew the phrase.
Survivor money.
Mom used it every month.
Angela requested records.
That was when the case changed.
May you like
Because it turned out Mom had not only left me alone with twenty dollars.
She had been receiving money meant to support me while she spent a month in Europe pretending motherhood was something she could pause.
