* * *
After waking up to the sound of Mom vacuuming the house at six a.m., I considered just getting into my truck and driving anywhere else. Maybe I'd go up to the Bay Area. I hadn't been there in years. Or I could keep going up to Oregon, Washington State. . . How easy was it to immigrate to Canada, anyway?
"Rowan, sweetheart, where's your dirty laundry?" Mom burst into my room without so much as a knock. "Oh, there it is. I'm doing a load of underwear. You and your father both have the smelliest boxers, I wonder if it's genetic—?"
I yanked the comforter over my head. How had I regressed to being thirteen again? And why the f**k am I still here?
While Mom was out shopping with a friend, I found myself alone in the house with Dad. It was too hot for gardening, so Dad was stuck inside.
