I Thought 'Home' Meant Warmth Nope, Just a Doghouse... Till I'm the HEIR, And It's novel Chapter 14

Chapter 6

“Dawn.”

1 froze. Mom had just said my name.

“This is my daughter, Dawn.” Mom looked up at the host. “Because of what happened with my father, my daughter and I haven’t really talked in a long time.”

My eyes began to sting with tears.

“A couple days ago, she left her grandma’s house in a fit and hasn’t contacted us since.”

I didn’t leave in a fit. I didn’t refuse to contact you. 1 just went to donate blood for Lily.

“Dawn.” Mom looked a little awkward as she faced the camera. “If you’re watching this, please come back to Grandma’s house. She’s really worried about you.”

Watching Mom’s stiff, uncomfortable expression, tears spilled over and ran down my face.

This was the first time in three years that Mom had called me by my name.

She didn’t call me a curse. She called me Dawn.

But I couldn’t reply with “okay” the way I used to.

After the interview, I pressed my soul close to Mom’s back and followed her all the way to the hospital.

I wanted to hold on to this rare moment of tenderness just a little longer.

I was so afraid that once we got back and Mom saw Lily again, she’d go back to how she was before. Back to not being mine anymore.

“Dr. Porter.”

Officer William stood at the hospital entrance with a police dog at his side. “A user online sent us a photo. Can you confirm if this is your daughter, Dawn

Porter?”

In the photo, a family of three stood at the top of a mountain, beaming at the camera.

But in the background, there was a blurry figure frozen on the trail leading down the mountain.

‘It’s a little blurry, but that should be Dawn.”

Officer William bent down and patted the dog’s head.

‘We’re heading up the mountain now to search for her.”

‘If Dawn went into the mountains and still hasn’t come out by now, the situation might not be… ideal.”

Before getting into the car, Officer William suddenly smacked his forehead and turned back to Mom.

‘Almost forgot! Do you have anything of Dawn’s on you?”

‘Something the dog can smell so we can track her.”

Mom stood frozen in front of the police car. After a long pause, she finally said, “No. I threw everything out at home.”

“What about at the hospital?”

“At the hospital…” Mom’s voice faltered. “Nothing there either.”

After Grandpa died, Mom had hauled all my belongings to a junk yard and tossed them.

Even photos of the two of us-she burned them all.

If Grandma hadn’t kept a copy of that video, I really would have been erased completely from Mom’s world.

“Officer William, Grandma just brought this over.”

1 looked down at what Officer William was holding, and my breath caught in my throat.

It was the shirt I’d been wearing during the accident. It was covered in my blood.

Grandma had meant to throw it away, Init with everything going on-Grampa’s funeral and all-she’d never gotten around to it.

And so it had stayed, tucked away, until this very moment when they needled something saturated with my scent.

Officer William took one look and said it was perfect. He held the blood soaked shirt up to the dog’s nose.

I turned toward Mom, trembling, terrified that whatever tiny flicker of warmth she’d just started to feel for me would be snuffed out the second she saw that

shirt.

But unexpectedly, Mom stayed calm.

“I didn’t realize… she lost that much blood.”

Mom got into Officer William’s car and went with them to the mountains.

I stood frozen in place, watching the police car disappear into the distance.

And for the first time, I found myself hoping-praying-that Mom wouldn’t find me.