(Lena)
Diane went back upstairs after a while.
She didn't make a production of it. Just stood, squeezed my shoulder once, and left me to it. That was the thing about Diane. She knew when presence helped and when space did.
I sat at the kitchen table after she left and looked at nothing in particular.
The two cups were still there. My mother's and mine. I should have gotten up and washed them. I didn't.
The day had started so well.
Patricia's project finished. The walk through clean. Everything exactly where it needed to be. I'd sat in my car afterward thinking about the kiss and pressing my fingers to my mouth and feeling for the first time in a long time like life was moving in a direction that made sense.
And then I'd come home.
And my mother had been sitting in my kitchen with t
