It was the question I knew she couldn’t answer: Why did you give up your family for drugs? Why did you choose being high over being my mom? Why did you let my sister go? Why weren’t we enough?

“Tell me where your phone is first. You’re not looking good, honey. I need to call for help. Now, please!”

“No!” I yelled with a grunt. “First tell me the truth!”

“Will an answer take it all back? Will it make everything better?”

I tried to shake my head but couldn’t. “No,” I said, “but maybe I’ll understand.” I would never understand.

She held an envelope near my face, letting it hover between us. “Here. This explains everything,” was all she said.

Willing my leaden arm to rise, I grudgingly accepted her offering, knowing it would never be enough. No words could replace the empty years without her. A tickle ran down my nose, dripped to the floor beside my face, dark…like blood? I wanted to wipe it away, get the blood off of me, but my arm was a dead weight now and lay limply at my side.

Mom left my side, returning a moment later to shove her hands along my pockets before she jumped up and grabbed the landline phone, a seventies relic from a previous tenant Cody had insisted we keep for its kitsch value. She scowled, discovering it was dead. I could have told her that.

“Your cell phone—where is it?” she screamed.

“Living room…table,” I finally gave in.

When she returned, she was nothing but a hazy silhouette.

“I need your passcode.”

“0509.” I wondered if she would catch the significance, and it was the last thought I had.

It was everything and yet nothing. A lie that I had believed for fifteen years. It was the day my mother had left us. The anniversary of her fake death: May 9. The day the Gilmore Girls died.

“Don’t leave me!” Mom’s words echoed down the long dark chamber that my consciousness numbly drifted toward.