the rooms like a ghost, touching the objects she had loved. Her collection of teacups on the kitchen shelf, the worn armchair

ly tied with a blue ribbon, sat in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. I sat on th

kyard. Her pride when I got my first A in history class. Her worries when

she had written, as if speaking directly to me now. "It will break your he

my marriage to Sarah, that I had let weeks go by without calling her. I remembered the la

tea," she had sai

for me. We have plans," I' d repl

hed off my own mother for a woman who was already betraying me. The guilt was a physical ache in my chest, a pain far sharpe

the son I should have been, for the years

ting my grief. It was a b

nsane. My credit c

l my card? You

is in your name. Where

to control me. He says I should

mpared to the monumental loss that was consuming me. She wasn' t asking how I was. She wasn' t o

' d chased, the long hours I' d put in. I did it all for her, for us. Or so I had

g. And ring. It finally went to voicema

everything I' ve done for you, this is how you repay me? You thin

The irony was staggering. I had built my life around her. She had simply been a gues