Emma
Time fractured into sharp, disconnected moments. Mom's favorite blue sweater crumpled on the floor – the one I'd helped her knit during those long hospital nights five years ago. The half-drunk tea on her nightstand, chamomile with honey, gone cold. Her gardening magazine open to an article about winter roses, reading glasses perched precariously on the edge of the page. Her hand, limp and cool when I touched it, still wearing the silver bracelet I'd given her for Christmas when I was sixteen, before everything fell apart.
The scene overlapped with another memory – five years ago, finding her collapsed in our tiny apartment, bills piled on the counter that we couldn't pay. The same terror froze my lungs now, making it impossible to breathe.
"Emma." Dominic's voice cut through the f
