Forty minutes.
I stood in my bedroom doorway and looked at the flat I had built from nothing and gave myself exactly three seconds to feel it. The cracked counter in the kitchen. The corkboard by the front door with the unfiled permission slips. The running shoes I kept meaning to replace. The small mark near the light switch where Lucas tried to draw a rocket when he was three and I scrubbed most of it off but not all.
Three seconds. Then I pulled the medium bag down from the top of the wardrobe and started packing.
I called my mother first.
She answered on the second ring. "Amara. The middle of the day, are you not at work?"
"Late start. How are you?"
"Fine. I made the stew with the dried fish your auntie sent. Came out very good." A pause. "How is Lucas? He was coughing last week.
