Chapter 10 - REBUILDING FROM ASHES

The bank foreclosed on the green house in East L.A. to cover their mounting legal debts. I drove by it one last time before leaving the city. The windows were dark, the yard overgrown with weeds. The family that had tried to erase me had effectively erased themselves. I felt no joy in their destruction, only the profound, suffocating weight of false guilt finally lifting from my chest.