Freedom didn’t arrive with a sense of relief.

It arrived smelling like fuel exhaust, burnt coffee, and cold metal—the unmistakable scent of a bus station just before sunrise. It tasted like a world that had kept moving while I stood still. I walked out through the iron gates holding a transparent plastic bag that contained everything I owned: two flannel shirts, a dog-eared copy of The Count of Monte Cristo with a broken spine, and the heavy quiet you collect after three years of being told your words don’t matter.

Yet as my boots hit the fractured pavement, my thoughts weren’t on prison.
Not on the noise.
Not on the injustice.

They were on one person.

My father.

Every night inside, I rebuilt him in my mind—always in the same place. Sitting in his old leather chair by the bay window, porch light casting a warm glow across the deep lines of his face. In my imagination, he was always waiting. Always alive. Holding onto the version of me that existed before the arrest, before the headlines, before the world decided Eli Vance was guilty.

I ignored the diner across the street despite the hollow ache in my stomach. I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t even look at the reentry address folded in my pocket.

I went straight home.

Or what I believed was home.

The bus dropped me three blocks away. I ran the rest, lungs burning, heart pounding like it could outrun time itself. The street looked familiar at first—the cracked sidewalks, the old maple tree sagging at the corner—but the closer I got, the more wrong it felt.

The porch railing was still there, but the peeling white paint was gone, replaced with a fresh slate-blue finish. The wild flower beds my father loved were trimmed and manicured, filled with plants I didn’t recognize. And the driveway—once empty—now held a polished sedan and an SUV, foreign and expensive.

I slowed.

Still, I climbed the steps.

The front door used to be dull navy—chosen because it “hid dirt best.” Now it was charcoal gray with a brass knocker. Where the crooked brown welcome mat once sat, there was a pristine coir mat that read:

HOME SWEET HOME

I knocked.

Not gently.
Not cautiously.

I knocked like a son who had counted every one of the 1,095 days. Like someone who still believed he belonged.

The door opened—and the warmth I expected never came.

Linda stood there.

My stepmother.

Perfectly styled hair. Crisp silk blouse. Sharp eyes that inspected me like an inconvenience delivered by mistake.

For a brief moment, I thought she might flinch. Or soften. Or at least seem surprised.

She didn’t.

“You’re out,” she said flatly.

“Where’s my dad?” My voice sounded unfamiliar—rough, too loud.

Her lips tightened.