I come back to myself at home.
I don’t remember getting there.
I don’t remember the car or the front door or sitting down.
I’m just — here.
In the house.
Her house.
Her reading glasses on the side table.
Her cardigan on the hook by the door that still smells like her.
The garden visible through the back window, the daisies still going, completely indifferent, full of color like nothing happened, like she didn’t just —
I push through the fog.
My mom.
I push harder.
I shouldn’t have.
I didn’t want to remember.
• • •
By the time the ambulance came it was too late.
The pneumonia had turned fast.
Her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe.
She was fine this morning.
She was fine.
She told me she was fine and I said good and walked out the door and that was it.
That was the last of it.
I just don’t understand.
I’m trying to connect the pieces, but nothing makes sense to me.
I think the pieces I have left are not enough.
• • •
I laugh.
Just once.
Short and horrible.
