Her bedroom had not been completely emptied.
That almost made it worse.
The bedspread was gone.
The photograph of us at Cannon Beach had been removed.
Her certificates had been taken down and stacked on the desk.
Her stuffed rabbit—the one she had slept with since she was three—had been placed inside a box marked **DONATE**.
Lily stared at it without crying.
Her expression simply became still.
I took the rabbit from the box and handed it to her.
She pressed it against her chest.
“Grandma said I was too old for him.”
“You are never too old for comfort,” I told her.
We gathered her clothes, laptop, sketchbook, inhaler, and the photograph of us, which had been placed facedown inside a drawer.
My attorney documented everything.
Downstairs, Evelyn was speaking to Officer Ramirez in the soft, controlled voice she used around strangers.
“My granddaughter has emotional difficulties,” she said. “I was trying to create boundaries.”
The officer looked up from her notes.
“Changing the locks and denying a child shelter is not a boundary.”
My mother’s smile tightened.
