I stared at Oswald's face, hard, waiting for him to say something. Anything. An explanation.
He said nothing.
He just stepped aside, clearing the path, gesturing for me to go get the rag.
My legs carried me inside before my mind could catch up.
On the entryway console sat their wedding portrait. The woman leaned into his arms, smiling like she'd won the world.
The date was printed in the bottom right corner. It was taken the second year after I'd dropped out to care for his mother.
At the far end of the living room, the master bedroom door hung half open. An older woman in a nightgown sat in a chaise lounge, peeling cherries and watching TV.
Serena Whitney.
The woman I'd waited on for three years.
Winters, when her arthritis flared, I pressed hot towels to her knees every single night.
She loved sauerkraut fish stew. I made it over twenty times before I got it right, before she finally said it was good enough.
Every time she finished eating, she'd grab my hand and call me her good girl.
"Mom, the delivery girl got the carpet dirty. I told her to wipe it up."
The woman called toward the bedroom.
Serena looked up. Her eyes passed over me.
Three years.
Over a thousand days and nights.
"Hurry it up. Don't go touching things that aren't yours. Country folk never do have any manners."
Her attention swung back to the woman almost instantly. She waved her over, patting the seat beside her, face bright with warmth.
"Wanda Simmons, did the baby move today? Any kicking? Let me tell you, when Oswald was little, he kicked like crazy too…"
I knelt on the floor, dragging the rag across the carpet, scrubbing at the medicine stain over and over.
My knees pressed into the cold tile. Serena's laughter floated out from the bedroom in waves.
Her voice sounded so much stronger than it had three years ago.
Back then, she'd lain on that wooden plank bed in the old house, mumbling the same thing day after day. My son is gone. I don't want to live either.
I wiped the last stain clean and stood up.
Oswald was leaning against the wall by the entryway, hands shoved in his pockets, his face completely blank as he waited for me to leave.
"Who are you, really?"
I squeezed the rag in my fist.
"I told you. I don't know you. Get out."
"If you don't leave now, I'm calling security."
His voice was flat. Not a single crack in it.
Two uniformed guards grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out through the front entrance.