Chapter 53
We start hiding out in one of the thousands of foreclosed houses that line the streets. There are no banks left now. No institutions to tell us that we can’t stay here. The house is empty and quiet. Its windows have been stripped of blinds and look like wide open eyes. The forced-air furnace is dead. It doesn't fill the house with heat and its steady humming anymore. Winter chill seeps into the walls of the bay and gable home. We picked this building because it looks like our old house, but its fireplace and the chimney have never been filled in. We’ve lived in this one open-concept room for about a month. But as Austin pokes at the fireplace and I huddle next to him, I know the cold is deepening. It grips the bones of the house. We can hear its timbers as they creak in the night. The co
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