DAVE
Mother's Arrival
The black Bentley glides through Howling Pines' gates like oil spreading over water, its pristine surface reflecting our chaotic compound in distorted elegance. My mother emerges in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and barely contained energy, five feet two inches of white wolf dynamo wrapped in a suit that screams haute couture. Sylvia Dupont Westwood has arrived, and reality better brace itself.
"David!" She spreads her arms wide, and I have no choice but to submit to the embrace that follows. Despite her diminutive stature, she hugs like someone trying to compress thirty years of suppressed maternal instinct into a single moment. "My darling boy. My only child with a functioning soul. Let me look at you."
She pulls back, studying me with those arctic blue eyes that see
