“Mom,” I whispered.
She turned toward me.
For years, she had been strong in the careful way mothers are when they think breaking will frighten their children. But now the strength went out of her face.
“I thought I failed you,” she said.
I crossed the kitchen in two steps and fell into her arms.
She held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I thought I didn’t wake up fast enough,” she sobbed into my hair. “I thought I left you downstairs.”
“You didn’t.”
“I heard you screaming for years.”
“I know.”
“No, baby, I heard you even when you weren’t screaming.”
We sank onto the floor together.
The rebuilt kitchen around us blurred.
Yellow walls.
White cabinets.
Morning light.
A room pretending it had healed.
My mother rocked me the way she must have when I was small, before hospitals and bandages and mirrors I was afraid to face.
