Not on the rug. Not on the soft, forgiving wool of the living room. On the kitchen linoleum, where the pattern of faded yellow daisies was worn thin. Her skirt pooled around her like a wilted flower. Her pearl earrings, the only nice thing my father had left her, caught the striped sunlight and threw it against the cabinets.
I knelt down too. Not because I wanted to. Because the sight of her there, so reduced, was more painful than the sting on my cheek. I knelt in front of her, and I put my hand on her bent head. Her hair, which she dyed a stubborn chestnut brown, felt like straw. the day my mother made an apology on all fours
She didn't look up as I walked in. She was focused on a spot near the baseboard where a glass of red wine had shattered an hour earlier. She had already mopped, but now she was down there with a handheld brush and a rag, scrubbing with a rhythmic, frantic desperation. "I shouldn't have said it," she whispered to the grout. Not on the rug
The dustpan slipped from my hand. Shards scattered again, tiny green teeth across the floor. She didn’t flinch. Neither of us moved. Her skirt pooled around her like a wilted flower
It started on a Tuesday afternoon. My mother realized that her favorite gold locket—the one passed down from her grandmother—was missing from her jewelry dish.
“I don’t know how else to say it,” she said, voice raw and small. “I’ve screamed. I’ve thrown things. I’ve blamed you for being a child. And none of it was ever about the vase.”