A white SUV and an unfamiliar red sedan sat in the driveway.
Even the front door had been replaced with a sleek black one and a modern lock.
It was the same house.
Its soul was gone.
I knocked hard.
Not as a visitor.
As a son.
Vonetta answered] in an emerald dress], hair perfectly done, pearl earrings, and looked at ]me with the mild annoyance of a woman ]finding a stain on her new carpet.
“You got out sooner than I expected,” she said.
“Where’s my father?”
She sighed.
“He was bur*ed a year ago.
C*ncer.
Fast.
Painful.
It’s over now.”
The ground seemed to shift under my feet.
“And nobody told me?
Nobody even asked if I could see him one last time?”
Vonetta gave a faint smile.
“Josiah, you went to pr*son for stealing from your own father’s company.
Do you really think he wanted you ruining his fun*ral?”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“You said that at trial.
Nobody believed you.”
I tried to look past her into the house.
The entrance hall no longer held our family photographs.
My mother’s portrait was gone.
My father’s favorite hat had disappeared.
Expensive furniture had replaced everything, along with the artificial smell of air freshener.
