Free Sample
Preview from chapter one
All it took was a stutter from the front door hinge and I was a ghost again in Mother's house before dawn. My key still fit, and I carefully locked the door behind me. Walked softly, shoes leaving no prints in the thin layer of dust. It was familiar, the darkness here: the hush of not-quite-home, the stagnant chill of unspoken words. I crept up the staircase the way I once did, years ago, after long evenings I wasn’t supposed to have, but now she was the one who would hide, and I would be the endless, nagging reminder of all she never wanted to admit.
The shower water started five minutes after I entered. She ran it cold first, always, a sharp gasp to her system, evidence of her Protestant self-flagellation, the pep talk of suffering she believed kept her young. I waited on the landing. There were no voices downstairs, no Dad for nearly seven years now, not even the radio at a murmur. Just the staccato hiss behind the half-jammed bathroom door. The world outside faded each time the house shuddered with a pulse of water, steam rising like anxiety’s breath around my ankles.
There was maybe one minute between shampoo and rinse cycle when I eased the door open. The mirror above the sink was white with a hot, rolling fog, the air dense enough to slick my lips and make my tongue stick. She was a blur at first, arms up around her head, working conditioner in. I took three steps forward and leaned my hip against the heated towel rack, arms folded. I wanted her to see me right away, no chance for composure, her surprise amplified by the slap of cold air I let in. She was turned away, and I watched hungrily as the bony knobs of her spine moved and stilled, moved and stilled. She was smaller than I remembered.
She shut off the tap, pried her hair with both fists, slick and kelp-green in that light. When she turned and realized I wasn't a trick of her mind, she froze, naked, her wetness ruined by her own involuntary shudder. She looked like a statue of shock, mouth open, eyes round and wet, nipples drawn tight against a sagging breast. In the days when she still had power over me, she’d have covered herself instantly, seized a towel, closed the door. Now, she just watched.