JT Johnson

I had waited for them outside, slapping away the bugs that had clung to my clothes when I had run out of the house.

The officers didn't stay in the house long after going in to inspect what I had told them was in there.

They all came out three shades paler, and with a look in their eyes, I could understand all too well.

I gave them my statement and asked if I could please, please go home.

I learned later that there was never any money.

No hidden savings or trust fund Nona had been hiding.

Mom believed there was.

And where that idea had come from, I will never know.

On the nights I can't sleep, haunted by the phantom bugs I feel crawling on my skin, I think of Nona and all she had ever done for me.

I know that somehow, as impossible as it may seem, Nona had helped me that night, protecting me from my mother one last time.