As Antonia had suspected, marauders had gone through our belongings. The floor was littered with splayed books, cigarette stubs, and sofa cushions. It smelled nothing like home.

I stood before the shelves that ran half the length of our living room, the rows of books that were as much a part of my father as his left arm. My mother had organized her literature collection in the order in which she’d read the books. She’d explained her reasoning to me once, her fingers running across the spines.

I can retrace my steps this way, the stories that became part of me before I was a mother and those I read with you in my arms.

Voices carried in on an evening breeze sent me pounding up the stairs and into my parents’ bedroom. I closed the door behind me and held my breath until I was certain no one had entered the house.

But when I turned around, what I saw felt like a punch in the stomach. The plastic bag fell from my hand and the lemon rolled out.

Their bedroom had been ransacked. Dresser drawers gaped open, and clothes were strewn across the bed. My mother’s jewelry box, a lacquered piece my father had brought from India, had been looted. Their cream and navy comforter lay crumpled on the floor and even the bed itself looked askew.

Though it had been nearly a month since the coup, I would not have been surprised to find their bodies in that room. It looked like they’d been killed a second time. I wanted to leave and never come back. I wanted to clean everything up. I wanted to pack everything in this house and take it with me. I wanted to hurt the people who had done this. I wanted to curl up in my parents’ bed.

But I knew I couldn’t stay here. I might suffocate if I did. I went to my mother’s nightstand and pushed on both sides. I rattled the table until the secret compartment slid open, and found the bundle of papers held together with a rubber band. I put it in my bag with clammy hands.

I opened the door to my mother’s armoire. Her carefully curated wardrobe, the pieces she’d discovered in secondhand shops, the ones she’d sewn by her own hand, inspired by European designs, and the blouses my father had wrapped with tissue paper and given to her—they were all gone. Only a pair of jeans remained, tossed to the floor.

I looked up and saw the leather cover of a bound photo album. Even on my tiptoes, I could not reach it. I brought over the chair from my mother’s vanity table and stood on it. My fingers touched the edge of the album, pushing it backward and nearly out of reach. I groaned and stretched my body until my calves and shoulder could go no farther.