The house still smelled like my mother eight months after we buried her.
Lavender in the linen closet, where she kept little cloth bags of it tucked between the towels. Lemon polish on the wooden banister, which she rubbed every Saturday morning while humming along to the radio. And the faint trace of her jasmine hand cream on the kitchen towels hanging by the sink. Nobody had the heart to wash them.
I kept expecting her to walk through the back door with grocery bags in both arms, complaining about the traffic on Route 9.
Diane, honey, they’ve got the whole road down to one lane again. I swear they’ve been fixing that bridge since 1987.
Instead, on a Sunday in April, my father walked through that door with Vanessa.
She was thirty-six years younger than him.
She was also two years younger than me.
She came into my mother’s kitchen in a cream-colored coat and high heels that clicked on the tile. Long blonde hair, perfectly curled. Big sunglasses pushed up on top of her head. Lipstick the color of a ripe plum.
She saw me standing by the stove and her face lit up.
“Diane, sweetheart!” she said. She held out both arms. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet my husband’s daughter.”
I stared at her.
My husband.
My mother had been dead for eight months.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I managed.
She hugged me. She smelled like expensive perfume. Something heavy and floral. It pushed the jasmine right out of the room.
My brother, Marcus, was standing in the doorway to the dining room.
He’d driven up from the city that morning because I’d begged him to. Called him three times on Saturday. Please, Marcus. Please. I can’t do this alone.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
TAP ” READ MORE ” 👇
