She walked in like she was inspecting a failure
My mother arrived perfectly on time.
Camel-colored coat. Heels clicking against our crooked walkway. Perfume that hit before she did.
I opened the door, and she walked in without saying hello.
She scanned the room once, then grabbed the doorframe like she needed to steady herself.
Her eyes moved across the secondhand couch, the scuffed coffee table, the faded crayon marks Aaron left along the baseboards — marks I never bothered to erase.
She walked through the living room like the floor might collapse under her.
“Oh my God,” she said, voice sharp. “What is this?”
She stopped in the hallway.
Her gaze landed on Aaron’s green handprints outside his bedroom — the ones he pressed there after we painted together.
And in the corner of his room sat an upright piano.
