Coming Home

It had been eight years since she had been home. Eight years, two months, and sixteen days.

The air in Milwaukee felt moist and heavy, like she was breathing water. She was used to the dry air of the desert and the heavy air made her feel lazy—sluggish.

She walked up the steps to her mother’s house. She missed the funeral. She told everyone she had work that she couldn’t get out of but really she just couldn’t bring herself to go.

She had sat at the Jungle Inn just a few blocks from her childhood home, dressed in the black dress she bought at a half-off sale. Her sunglasses covered her dry eyes. After driving to the funeral parlor and sitting in the car for twenty minutes, she decided she couldn’t be around her family—couldn’t pretend to be sad when all she felt was—nothing.

Her mother had died a long death, the reason not quite known though the doctors did all they could to find out. And she hadn’t visited once, not since before her mother got sick. After that day in the Hotel Wisconsin, not after what her mother had done.