Roaches scurry across her bare feet. It's a scorching July day in 1996, and Denise now lives in a house with no electricity or water. In the kitchen, milk curdles in bowls of uneaten cereal, and mold grows on slices of pizza left on plates in the dusty sink. She tries to focus on the woman standing before her, a short, stocky woman. The woman is covering her nose and holding a hand to her mouth to keep from retching.
Tears roll down the woman's face.
If you'd come home, your sister and I could take care of you. Even Denise can't bear to look at herself in a mirror. Gray skin, hollow, unblinking eyes, matted hair. She weighs maybe 70 pounds. Lesions the size and shape of index fingers scar her neck.