“My flight was canceled, so I came home early—and found my son at my front door with a metal tool in his hand.”

The moving truck in my driveway was already half-filled with pieces of my life.

“Stop right there!”

My son, Tommy, spun around so quickly that the tool slipped from his fingers and clattered against the porch. His wife, Sandra, froze beside him with a screwdriver still in her hand.

Neither of them spoke.

I stood at the bottom of the steps, sixty-nine years old, staring at the house where I had lived for more than forty years.

My late husband, James, and I had swept that porch every Saturday morning. Tommy had once sat on those same steps with his school backpack between his knees.

Now my own son was trying to force open my front door.

Behind him, the moving truck stood wide open.

My couch was inside.