Not Every Home Is Meant to Be Returned To novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Put Your Plate in the Dishwasher
On her eighteenth birthday Hazel gets no cake, no card and an order to load the dishwasher, sees her mother pocket a letter addressed to her, and walks out; the next morning her mother texts that the bank needs her signature.
On my eighteenth birthday, my father took my little sister to an amusement park and told me to load the dishwasher.
I had put on my favorite dress that morning, the blue one with the pearl-trimmed neckline.
I had barely slept the night before.
In eighteen years, nobody in my house had ever remembered my birthday.
When my older sister Lacey turned twenty-one, my parents took her to a restaurant with cloth napkins.
When my little sister Maisie turned eight, she got a whole week of whatever she asked for.
My birthday fell on a Thursday, a week before graduation, and my family treated it like any other day.
I thought eighteen might be different.
At breakfast, Dad said, "Maisie and I are going to Cedar Point."
Mom pointed at the table without looking up. "Put your plate in the dishwasher when you're done. I'm taking Lacey to the mall."
Then the car doors slammed, and the house was empty.
I posted a photo of myself on Instagram and wrote: First day of being eighteen.
I tagged all four of them.
By evening, not one of them had liked it.
They came home with shopping bags and a stuffed rabbit the size of a pillow.
Mom looked at me in the hallway and said, "We already ate. Order something for yourself."
No cake. No card. Nobody said happy birthday.
Mom picked the mail up off the hall table and sorted it with her thumb.
A long cream envelope slid out of the pile, and I saw my name typed across the front.
"That's mine," I said.
Mom slid it into her handbag without opening it. "Bank stuff. I handle your accounts."
Then she turned to Lacey and held a new dress up against her shoulders.
"Hazel, stop posting everything online," she said over her shoulder. "There's no need."
I didn't answer that.
I stood in the doorway of the living room and watched them.
Dad was on the couch with a glass of red wine, making faces so Maisie would laugh at her tablet.
Lacey was turning in front of the mirror, and Mom was fixing her curls.
They looked like a family of four.
"Dad," I said. "Today I..."
"Hm?" He didn't look up from the news. "Maisie, brush your teeth after that ice cream. Next time we'll get strawberry."
I am allergic to strawberries.
He has never once been able to finish a sentence of mine, and he has never learned that.
I walked over to where Mom sat and said, "Can I see my baby pictures? Maisie's looking at hers, and I want to see mine."
Mom glanced up and paused when she saw it was me. "You're too old for that. Why would you want to look at those?"
Lacey met my eyes in the mirror for one second.
Then she looked down and smoothed her skirt.
I went to my room, which is on the first floor right beside the front door.
The only birthday message I had received all day was from Kenzie Doyle, a girl in my homeroom.
She had sent me a photo of a cake with my name piped on it in green icing.
Under it she'd written: Come get a slice. My mom says you're not allowed to say no.
I sat on my bed and looked at the dress.
A single fake pearl had come off the neckline sometime during the day.
The row looked nearly whole, but I knew where the gap was.
Mom knocked on my door without opening it. "Hazel, get up early tomorrow and take Maisie to her art class."
I used to say okay.
I had said okay since I was nine years old.
"No," I said.
She waited a moment for me to take it back, and then her footsteps went away down the hall.
So I packed a backpack with my phone charger, my school ID, three pairs of jeans and the photo of Grandma from my nightstand.
I put on my sneakers and left through my own front door.
Nobody came out of the living room to ask where I was going.
Kenzie's house was a mile away, and I walked every step of it in the blue dress.
At the door, her mother pulled me inside and put a plate in my hands before I said a word.
The cake was on the table with eighteen candles.
I had not cried all day, and I cried then.
At six the next morning my phone buzzed on Kenzie's couch.
Mom had written: Where are you? Maisie's class is at nine. Also the bank needs your signature Friday, so stop being dramatic and come home.
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