Home Entertainment Game Technology Advertisement Part 2: For eight years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.

"Who filed this?"

Avery swallowed.

"Your father."

I closed my eyes.

Mitch Lockheart.

The man who taught me to tie my shoes.

The man who told everyone his daughter was dead while she slept beneath his roof.

I opened my eyes.

"Then we're going to make him explain."

***

Avery was my older cousin.

She'd moved across the country when I was seventeen, after accepting a teaching position in Oregon.

We hadn't been especially close.

She was eight years older, and by the time I was old enough to understand her life, she'd already begun building one somewhere else.

But I remembered her kindness.

She brought me books for Christmas.

Sent postcards from the coast.

Once took me to a concert when my parents said I was too young.

Then came my hospitalization.

And afterward, silence.

Avery told me she'd received a call from my father saying I'd died following a medical emergency.