I stare at the pile of discarded remnants and think of my mother. Did she touch that pillar there? Does her scent still linger in a fragment of glass or a splinter of wood? A terrible emptiness settles into my chest. No matter how much I go about living, there are always small reminders that make the loss fresh again.

She knew what it was to wait for someone who would never come home. She knew that grief, like a scar, faded but never really went away.

Tonight, she went into the woods, and I fear she shall live in the woods of my soul for the rest of my days.

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.

She hadn’t meant to get trapped in a conversation. That was the trouble with offering help to old people.

Clothing left on the bed unfolded. Books stained with coffee spots. Tabs not paid until the last possible second. Boys kissed and then forgotten in a week’s time.

I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.