Wind picks at the tent. My mother's fingers rest on the mound like it might pulse. Joseph stands behind her chair, jaw dark with bruising. Marcus lingers at the edge of the plywood, ash drying in the cracks of his knuckles.
“Go," my mother had said. He didn't.
He turns back, something ugly stitching itself to his face. “No," he says. “We're not ending on *that* version."
Joseph's shoulders tighten. “There isn't a version, Marcus. There's the truth."
“The truth," Marcus repeats, laugh scraping. “From *you*?" He looks at my mother. “From a woman who scripted a breakup and let me spend a decade choking on it?"
My mother's chin lifts a degree. “I'm not proud of that."
“You're lying now," he snaps. “You and your volunteer saint there. You think you get to rewrite her into a martyr and me
