About 2 months after dad walked out, mom realized she couldn’t afford to pay the bills of living in the city. She had gotten behind on a lot of the payments and she didn’t know what to do.

In late June she knocked on my door and came to sit on the corner of my bed. “Is something wrong, mom?” I asked nervously.

“I’m thinking we need to move back to Greenfield. We can stay with grandma. It would just be for a little while, until I get my legs underneath me again.”

I could have been upset, or thrown a fit, but I knew she was only doing this because she had too. It was the least I could do to cooperate.

4 weeks later, we loaded up the car and hit the road. I watched as the skyscrapers gave way to grassland and forests. My hometown gave way to my mom’s.

The first person to visit us was mom’s childhood best friend, Jaylene. She gave me a huge hug and dragged me to meet her son and his wife. “Abby, this is Derek and Lily. They are going to take good care of you. I can tell you are going to be great friends.”