Sol tensed in response to the creaking porch. She didn’t recognize those footsteps. Bounding across her living room in three inaudible strides, she entered the kitchen and armed herself with a knife. The sharp scent of the onions she’d cut for breakfast lingered on its blade. The footsteps halted a few feet from the door, their echo drowning in the drone of the cicadas outside. Sol dropped to an alert crouch, the knife gripped tightly in her left hand. The unknown visitor exhaled deeply. It was a man. Sol remained in place, waiting for his next move.
A sharp jangle rang out. Keys. “Is he from the bank?” Sol mouthed to herself. Her dead grandmother continued to receive bank notices, but Sol never opened mail that wasn’t hers. Her first cellmate, Laura, had gotten four years for that. The s
