Return from the Abandoned House

My nephew reappeared after over a decade. Posted by u/ya_boi_zeus. As I write this, I’m nursing a glass

of whiskey on my back porch, and I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling

right now. It’s been eleven years since he disappeared, and that kid has been my whole world

since the day he was born; his mother hasn’t been in his life since he was a baby—it’s a long

and frankly traumatic story so I won’t tell it here, but to condense it,

she’s an addict and only God knows where, so I’ve been Ozzie’s legal guardian since

he was two. October 31st, 2014—Ozzie told me he was going out with his friends

for the night, and I remember it so vividly: his face with brown freckles like his