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Chapter 9 by rockyboy150 rockyboy150

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A Visit Home

She came back on a Tuesday afternoon. A black town car, not the minivan, pulled into the driveway.

We watched from the window as she emerged. Crystal, in a tight, designer pantsuit and oversized sunglasses, her new figure painfully obvious. She moved with a confident sway that was utterly foreign on our front walk.

Dad didn’t open the door. He just stood behind it, waiting. She let herself in with a key she still had.

The sight of her in the foyer, filling it with her new presence and the scent of expensive perfume, was surreal. She took off her sunglasses, revealing eyes that were my mother’s, but the look in them was desperately searching.

“Donny?” she said, and the voice cracked. It was small. Scared. It was her.

Dad’s stern facade shattered. “Jenny?”

She nodded, tears welling up. “She… she let me come. I think she wanted me to see… all this.” She gestured weakly at her own altered body, her voice thick with shame. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Tabitha ran to her first, burying her face in the expensive fabric of the suit jacket, sobbing. David hung back, his arms crossed, his gaze a mixture of longing and revulsion for the plasticized form his mother now wore.

I just stood there. It was my mom. In her eyes, in the broken sound of her voice. But she was housed in a stranger’s trophy. When she hugged me, the embrace felt different—the new proportions awkward, the scent wrong. She cried into my shoulder, whispering apologies over and over.

It was a heartbreaking relief and a fresh horror all at once. She was home. But she couldn’t stay. Crystal had a late-night talk show appearance. This was just a visit, a cruel furlough to show the prisoner the world she’d lost.

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