They threw me out into the heat with two feverish babies and an empty bottle… three months after my parents’ funeral, a lawyer whispered: ‘Your parents didn’t die by accident.’ So why was my uncle already smiling outside the courtroom?

I begged her to stop.

“They’re sick,” I cried. “They need to eat.”

Uncle Ray came in, looked at the mess, and said coldly:

“That’s it. No more problems in this house.”

I thought I was in trouble.

I didn’t realize… he meant all three of us.

He dragged the diaper bag to the front door.

Diane shoved Eli into my arms and strapped Owen into his car seat so roughly he started choking from crying.

Then they pushed us outside.

Barefoot.

No water. No medicine. Not even the bottle.

The door slammed behind us.

I stood there on the sidewalk.