In the spring of the third year, Serena came back.
Hannah told me that after leaving, Serena had been deceived by a man.
She had met him online. He told her he could take her to Ardenia. She believed him and gave him every dollar she had taken from home.
Once he got the money, he disappeared.
Alone in an unfamiliar city and penniless, she had slept at train stations and under bridges before a homeless shelter finally arranged for her to return home.
"Your father went to pick her up," Hannah said. "I heard she was painfully thin when she came back and seemed mentally unstable. She kept repeating, 'He tricked me. He tricked me.'"
I listened without saying anything.
"Your mother cried terribly, saying this was the consequence of everything they had done. Your father was so angry that h
