I Came Home After Four Years Working Abroad and Found My Wife Starving in Our Backyard—Then My Mother Asked About the Money I Hadn’t Told Her Was Fake

PART 8 — FOUR YEARS LATER

Four years after I came home from Germany, Phoebe and I sat on our back porch drinking tea.

Not because stories require porches.

Because Phoebe actually liked sitting outside after years of associating the backyard with punishment.

At first, she could not.

Our new yard was different.

Still.

The first month after moving, she avoided the patio.