CHAPTER 27
180 days before I woke up dead,
my mother came home with dirt under her fingernails.
I remember that now.
Only now.
It was raining that night—heavy, cleansing, almost theatrical. I was curled on the living room couch with a book I didn’t remember picking up. She walked in from the back door, holding a bag of oranges in one hand and wiping her other palm on the inside of her jacket. Her eyes were distant. Not tired. Not rushed. Just... emptied out.
I didn’t ask her anything. She didn’t say anything. We watched a movie in silence, and she fell asleep before the second act. I remember the way her hand twitched against the cushion, like something was still unsettled.
I think she thought she had buried it deep enough.
I think she was wrong.
I stand in her kitchen now, months
