And then. And then I’m remembering my mother more clearly than I ever have. My mother, sick. My mama, my mama, my mama, who I love, who used to have doll hair and a cozy lap and smelled like fresh lipstick. And I remember her telling me she’s going away. But she loves me. She doesn’t want to go away. This is not my fault. Nothing is my fault. I want to play hide-and-seek but she says no. She tickles me. She kisses me, and it’s dry like paper. I love her. I want more time with her, infinite amounts of time, an hour for each star in the sky. She hums her special song for me, Susanna, Susanna, but she can’t get it out. Not quite. Not enough air left in her body, she says...

And now, right this moment, I’m enveloped by a soft, nurturing embrace, and I fall into it, cherishing the warmth, that special, overpowering love, two hearts beating in tandem.

But then I open my eyes.

And the eyes that stare back at me aren’t my mother’s. They’re Anneliese’s. They’re green, tinged with yellow. But the pupils are so dilated that in this moment, the eyes are mostly black, dark points of smoke singeing the whites. We’re in the bed together, my body entangled with hers. She’s squeezing me, her arms wrapped around me like a vise.

She stops singing suddenly, presses her forehead to mine. “This is the room, you know. The room where I did it.” Her voice, it’s lucid again. Her spittle brushes my lips as she talks.

My toes go numb, dread sinking my body into the mattress.

“When she was dying, they moved her into this room. I don’t usually go in here, you know. The walls reek of her sickness.” She’s talking frantically, not pausing for breath. “Even so, the whole ordeal was peaceful. She died quietly. Her body was so close to death anyway that she barely struggled when I put the pillow over her. And when it was over, I made sure she looked magnificent. A regal corpse.” She finally pauses, presses her head deeper into mine, lodging herself there, my temples pounding from the force.

And then a susurration, her breath feathery on my face: “I did it all for you.”

My vision dims, her words dripping through me like scalding wax, my whole body quaking, my heart outside my rib cage.

A glint of a memory catapults me into the past.

Waking from my nap. No baby gate. I slip out soundlessly with Lolly. Annie is in the kitchen, so I go to Mama’s room. She said goodbye but I don’t want her to go yet.