We never really used the tub. My mother believed the best start to the day was a swim, no matter how cold the lake was. She swam from spring to fall and chastised us if we didn’t do the same. We even swam in thunderstorms as long as the lightning wasn’t too close.

The doors to the bedrooms are all shut, creating the sense that there are people on the other side wanting privacy. Bypassing my room and May’s, I go straight to my parents’. It’s the largest one, at the front of the cottage, the only one with a view of the lake.

I have to push hard on the door to unstick it from the wooden doorframe and half stumble into the room when it finally gives way. Like the rest of the cottage, this room looks as though someone was here only hours ago. My mother’s perfume bottles, face creams, and jewelry are still scattered across her dresser—the display made monochromatic by the thick layer of dust.

The bed is still made with white sheets and the blue-and-yellow flowered quilt my mother bought one year at the farmers’ market. Veins of black mold crawl across its surface, right below a water stain on the ceiling where the roof must now leak. I think about stripping away the dirty, moldy sheets, but it’s all so overwhelming—the dust, the mouse shit, the dirty bathroom. Where do I even begin?

Turning to leave, I come face-to-face with the open closet and my mother’s dresses, which are still hanging there. I jump, feeling as though I’ve just seen her ghost. The door is open only a few inches, and at first glance there’s the illusion that she’s in there hiding, ready to step out into the light.

When my heart slows to its normal pace, I step forward and pull the door fully open. Taking one of her dresses in my hand, I pull it up to my face. Inhaling, I’m able to pull the faintest trace of her scent from the cotton fabric—French perfume, outdoors, and cigarette smoke. It’s buried deep under the pervading mustiness but it’s there, triggering a longing in me so deep it cuts through my gut.

It’s not the mother who died recently that I’m mourning. It’s the one from the summers of my childhood. Before my father left and we rushed away from this place, taking nothing with us. Before I grew up and realized how truly destructive she could be, and selfish. Before I lost that innocent, naïve belief that because she was a mother, she was good and safe.