Something about my weekly calls home had been bothering me for months, but I kept convincing myself I was imagining things. Then I heard my sister say something she never intended me to hear, and suddenly, waiting another day wasn’t an option.
Advertisement
The highway was empty at 2 a.m., and my hands were locked so tight around the steering wheel that my knuckles ached. I kept hearing it over and over, the way a bad song loops in your head.
“Don’t you dare tell her anything!”
That’s what my sister had hissed last Sunday, right before the call cut off.
She thought I hadn’t caught it. I had.
I kept hearing it over and over.
***
My name is Maya, and I’m a manager of a company in North Carolina. My mom, Adeline, lives two states away in a yellow house where my younger sister, Vanessa, and I grew up. Dad, Lucas, died eight months ago. Heart attack, no warning, no goodbye.
After the funeral, Mom could barely walk. Her knees had been giving out for years, and losing Dad seemed to take the last of her strength with him. She refused to leave the house. Said she’d rather die on that porch than in some