Chapter 5 - When The Cameras Kept Rolling
The front door slammed, but it wasn't my parents going inside—it was my younger brother, Kevin. He stood in the doorway holding a beer can, his eyes red from sleep, wearing clothes bought with money he never earned.
“What’s all the noise out here?” Kevin slurred. Then he saw me. The beer can slipped from his fingers, spilling pale foam across the floorboards. “Sarah?”
“Hey, Kevin,” I said coldly. “I see you’re enjoying my living room.”
“Mom said you were doing life without parole,” Kevin stammered, stepping back. “She said... she said you joined a gang in prison.”
“Kevin, shut your mouth and get back inside!” my father barked, his face turning an alarming shade of purple.
“No, Dad,” Kevin replied, his jaw hanging open as he stared at my medals. “She’s got the Bronze Star. Uncle Tommy had that same ribbon on his wall before he passed. That’s real.”
The crowd from the neighborhood had grown to nearly forty people. Neighbors from two streets over had walked down after hearing the sirens. Mrs. Avery, who had baked pies for my parents when they claimed they were in mourning, walked up to the patrol car with tears in her eyes.
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“Eleanor, how could you?” Mrs. Avery cried out. “We brought you dinner every Sunday for four months after you told us she went to prison! We mowed your lawn!”
“You all don't understand the sacrifice of raising an ungrateful child!” Eleanor shrieked, her voice turning shrill and hysterical. “She abandoned us! She ran off to play soldier while we had debts to pay! That money was our family money!”
