Touching the place on my skull where it hurt the most—though everything hurt—my palm sank into a matted mess of wet hair. My fingers traced a gash a pinkie-length long. Trying to push myself upright, my hands slipped across the floor. A crown of discomfort pinched my head. I looked up. A shadow looked back.

“Don’t move!” a voice ordered me from above.

Cody? No, it was a woman caught in a fog.

“Do you have a phone?” The voice was frantic and distant now.

Pain swept across my temples. I fell limply back. My body thrummed with the pulse of blood seeping out. I closed my eyes, but they wouldn’t reopen. I felt utterly alone. Then footsteps. No, I wasn’t alone. I sensed more than saw a presence somewhere in the closed-eye murk surrounding me.

Darkness had a way of hiding things. Like the dirt crusted in the corner where the peeling linoleum met the pine wood cabinet. Or the blood seeping out of my head into a puddle on the floor. Every bit of our poverty showed in the details of the house. It wasn’t until I heard the voice that I realized who knelt down beside me. I peeled my eyelids open. A streak of light crossed my resurrected mother’s face. A groan escaped from my lips as I tried to turn toward her, my headache worsening with the movement.

It frightened me that I couldn’t remember what exactly happened.

It frightened me more that I would die here, in the same wet spot by the broken sink that I had just yelled at Cody to fix, before saying what I needed to say to the woman who killed my soul fifteen years ago.

“Where’s your cell phone? I need to call 9-1-1.” She was begging now. “Do you know what happened?” she asked me.

I couldn’t answer. None of my body parts seemed to be working. Then I pushed every bit of willpower into opening my mouth just barely enough to let a word escape. “No.”

“Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake until an ambulance arrives. Where’s your phone?”

I felt weaker by the minute. I felt my life seeping out on the floor. But I wouldn’t give her the absolution she came for. Not yet.

“Not until I get answers,” I replied.

She gave a motherly cluck, as if she had ever played the role of mother. “What do you want to know?”

I had to push the words out. My eyelids grew heavier by the moment. I felt like I was nodding off, but not into a peaceful slumber. More like an eternal one. “I want to know why. Why you lied. Why you did what you did.”