Music was pounding through the trees. Cars I didn’t recognize were parked crookedly in the grass. My hands went cold on the wheel.
The white curtains had a stain running down them.
I parked behind the tree line and walked up quietly. The front door was wide open.
Inside, it looked like someone had emptied a bar into my mother’s living room.
Champagne dripped from the ceiling beam. A man I’d never seen was stretched out across the couch with his bare feet on Mom’s embroidered pillows, the ones she’d sewn during chemo.
Rose stood in the middle of the kitchen, laughing, pouring out a bottle for a girl in a sequined dress. Every counter was crowded with bottles and open takeout containers. The white curtains had a stain running down them.
He never asked me that.
I didn’t step inside.
I turned around, walked back to my car, and sat behind the wheel, hands shaking on my knees.
