After spending three years behind bars, I returned home only to discover my father was gone and my stepmother had taken over his house. “He was buried a year ago,” she said coldly. “Now get off my property.” Then she shut the door in my face. I ran to the cemetery, desperate to find his grave, but the old groundskeeper looked at me with pity.

The first taste of freedom wasn’t sweet. It tasted like diesel fumes, stale coffee, and the cold air of a bus station at sunrise.

After three years in prison, Eli Vance walked out carrying everything he owned in a clear plastic bag. But he wasn’t thinking about prison. He was thinking about his father, Thomas.

For years, Eli had imagined his father waiting at home in his old armchair by the window. But when Eli arrived, the house looked different. New paint. New cars. No trace of his father.

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